


A Handful of Dust

by tarysande



Series: Grace Shepard [18]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Citadel Spoilers, Endgame, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-06 01:26:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 64
Words: 186,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarysande/pseuds/tarysande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten billion people over here die, so twenty billion over there can live.</p><p>After the war, there are pieces to pick up, and lives to rebuild. And even with the Reapers gone, nothing is easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cruelest Month

For the most part, Garrus kept to the battery. This wasn’t, in and of itself, strange. He’d kept to the battery as long as the _Normandy_ ’d had a battery to keep to. It was, by unspoken consensus, _his_ domain, and everybody knew it. 

Once, and only once, he’d found a tech poking around the Thanix, trying to bring it back in line with Alliance regs. Never mind that Alliance regs would’ve had the guns running at five percent lower efficiency. He had no idea what memo Shepard sent out, or what words she’d spoken on her next tour of the ship, but no one ever showed up unannounced after that. Except Shepard herself, of course. And _no one_ touched the gun. Ever.

During recent months, he’d made more of an effort to mingle. Tried to fit in. He shot the shit with Vega. Avoided looking too hard at the endless stream of information on Liara’s bank of screens while they chatted. Traded war stories with the Alliance crew. He played cards with Joker and Alenko, let Traynor teach him chess, shared the occasional drink with Doctor Chakwas, and visited Tali in engineering even when it inevitably meant a lecture about the inappropriateness of stealing power from one source to fuel another. (He pretended he didn’t know what she was talking about. She kicked him. Hard.) Hell, he’d even voluntarily spent time with Javik, endless talk of primitives and threats of airlock death aside. 

Partly he’d done it for Shepard’s sake. He figured if he was out there taking the pulse of her crew, he’d be better equipped to help and more likely to catch and divert at least some of the interminable, unnecessary crap inevitably attempting to make its way to her. It hadn’t taken long to see she was already drowning in it by the time she picked him up on Menae.

The other part of mingling with the crew was for his own benefit. To remember what it was to be part of a functional team. A good team. A solid team. The dark months after Omega weren’t far enough away to be forgotten, but the team Shepard built to take out the Collectors had won him over eventually, and his task force on Palaven had stolen the last of the bitter sting from that old wound. He didn’t want to slide backward. So he occasionally left the battery of his own accord. Played nice. Tried. Sometimes, he thought, even succeeded.

When they’d crashed, and after Chakwas had reluctantly released him from the medbay, he’d put in as much time as anyone—more, if Liara and Tali’s fretting was any indication—on repairs. The Thanix could wait; whatever had grounded them couldn’t. The sooner the _Normandy_ was spaceworthy again, the sooner they could head back and pick up Shepard.

She’d obviously done something, after all. The ramifications weren’t entirely clear. Garrus had been out of commission at the time, though Joker spoke of some kind of wave of energy they’d been desperate to outrun. Ineffectually, as it turned out. The wave overtook them. EDI… stopped. The ship crashed. Nothing they tried could bring EDI back online, even though none of the damage the ship took seemed to indicate that kind of potential trauma to the resident AI.

Gently, carefully, Garrus moved EDI’s body—her mobile platform—from the bridge down to the AI core. Joker protested, but stopped looking quite so haunted. With everyone else, at least. He wouldn’t look Garrus in the eye. Of course, Garrus wasn’t sure how much of it was to do with moving EDI, and how much was due to Joker’s own feelings about leaving Shepard behind.

Hackett’s orders. Alenko’s insistence on those orders being followed. But Joker’s hands had been the ones on the console. They all knew it. No one said anything. Truth was, Garrus felt bad for him, and not just because of EDI. Running, leaving Shepard behind? It was all a far cry from the heroics of the Collector base.

Where Shepard would have died, if not for Joker. By the dark circles under his eyes, Garrus was certain this thought had also occurred to the pilot, and it was one that kept him up nights.

Then, after a week of tinkering and fighting and rerouting and no small amount of blunt force, Traynor got the comms up.

Garrus almost wished she hadn’t. He couldn’t blame her, though. He was pretty sure she wished she hadn’t been the bearer of that particular batch of intelligence either.

The Reapers were dead. Anderson was dead.

Shepard was presumed—

Shepard was missing.

Everyone looked haunted then. And Garrus kept to the battery. He switched his sleep cycle so there’d be less likelihood of running into the majority of the crew. He worked longer hours. He didn’t want to witness the lifeless slump of a crew already in mourning. He didn’t want to hear Alenko’s excuses or his apologies, or the way Liara’s breath hitched every time she looked at him; it was bad enough he couldn’t avoid the scrolling biofeedback that told him too much. His visor’s audio link blasted endless dance mixes. He skipped past anything slow. He nearly threw the visor across the room when it dared play a tango. His tango. Shepard’s tango. The dance mixes were better. Especially if he played them so loud he couldn’t think.

That’s what he told himself, anyway. Sometimes he almost believed it.

Once a day, he made the trek up to Shepard’s quarters and fed her hamster. The fish, cared for by the VI she’d paid such an astronomical sum for, swam on, indifferent to their owner’s absence.

_Death_ , came the word, unbidden, taking root before he could push it away.

No.

He couldn’t afford that word. Not even in the privacy of his own thoughts.

And yet it always found him when he was alone in her room, surrounded by her things, like cold fingers trailing down his back. Like a persistent whisper no music could possibly drown out. _Death, death, death._

He could have brought the rodent down to the battery with him and spared himself the daily dose of despair the empty room and soft music and faint scent of her caused him. He thought about it. Once he went so far as to lift the glass box and take three steps toward the door before immediately turning around and returning it to its proper place. The hamster squeaked at him and hid, as usual. He gave it a little extra food in mute apology.

After the memorial Alenko insisted on, Garrus took his usual trip up to Shepard’s cabin, and let himself linger a little longer than usual. He dropped food into the hamster’s cage, and the husk head— _Yorick_ , Shepard called it, and told him he’d understand when they finally saw that Elcor production of _Hamlet_ —screamed at him, just like every other day. The SR-1 model in the glass cabinet was crooked; he fixed it. He thought about smashing Sovereign, but stopped himself when he realized Shepard would perch his head next to Yorick’s if he dared.

Then he took the stairs down to her bedroom for the first time since—since, and straightened the pillows that had fallen when the ship crashed. The smell of her was stronger here, still clinging to the sheets. He turned away before he could think about how long that scent would last. Another week? A month? He reset Petrovsky’s chess board, and then bent to retrieve several pieces of broken glass from the floor. Water he’d left on the table before everything went to hell? One of her ever-present but rarely-used wineglasses? He wasn’t sure.

A particularly sharp edge cut deep into the pad of his forefinger, and he stared down, uncomprehending, at the bead of blue blood welling up. He felt pain, but distantly, almost unwillingly. Like an afterthought. Like his body was saying, _oh, this again._

Mostly he just felt angry. Suddenly. Sharply. Not at the little wound. Not even at the glass that’d cut him. He thought he was angry with himself. At that damned Mako for taking him out during the final push. At everyone who dared turn their hopeless eyes on him, silently begging him to give up. At the nameplate he’d refused to mount on the crew deck’s wall of bitter losses.

He was angry with Shepard. And he was angry with himself for being angry at her.

Forget his finger. _That_ was pain.

For all his talk of ruthless calculus, somehow he hadn’t expected this loss. Everyone else, maybe. He’d always believed, no matter what, Shepard would be the survivor left standing at the end. He’d have died to see that made reality. And instead, here he was. Bleeding in her empty room, angry with ghosts.

The door swished open, the sound like an insult. If he’d had a weapon, he might’ve pointed it at the intruder; he was that angry. Through the glass case of model ships, he saw a flash of purple. 

“Garrus?” Tali asked, “Are you in here?”

He dropped his handful of glass on the table and moved into her line of sight. Tali hovered in the doorway, keeping the door open with her presence as if she couldn’t bear to step all the way inside.

“I keep asking EDI things like, ‘Can you tell me where Garrus is?’ and, ‘If we recalibrate the capacitor input can we improve drive core functionality by at least .6%?’” Tali admitted, her voice breaking on the final word. She wrapped her arms tight across her chest, almost a hug. “And she doesn’t answer. I was so opposed to her, in the beginning. So offended. Now I’d give anything to hear her say, ‘That course of action would be unwise, Tali’Zorah.’”

“Best part of working with Shepard,” he said, trying for humor and failing miserably. “Having to eat your own words a dozen times a day.”

Finally entering the room so the door could close behind her, Tali bowed her head, the lights of her eyes momentarily lost to the shadow of her hood. “We’re leaving,” she said. “I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

His mandibles flicked. Not a smile, but a little of his irrational anger ebbed. “You say that like it’s not the best news I’ve had in weeks.”

Three weeks and two days since they crashed. Three weeks and two days since _no matter what happens here…_

Almost a month of this, a different kind of hell. One without Shepard to follow.

Tali didn’t look up. If anything, her posture shifted into something more miserable. “We’re not going to the Citadel.”

He blinked. His cut finger throbbed. “What?”

“Sam got Admiral Hackett on the comm, right after—you know. The service. He’s ordered the _Normandy_ back to Earth. Planetside. Immediately.”

Garrus swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, gut suddenly churning. His own voice sounded as broken and sharp and cutting as the glass when he said, “They found her.”

“I don’t know, Garrus. Kaidan spoke to the admiral. He… didn’t look good, after. Then Engineer Adams said the ship was as good to fly as he could tell without EDI to verify it.” Tali shivered slightly, and then turned her head to gaze at the lazily swimming fish. “She had so many backups. There… don’t you think there must be a way?”

“I’m not giving up.”

Tali nodded, the light from the aquarium throwing strange shadows over the faceplate of her helmet. “The admiral said the relays aren’t working. We have to travel FTL.”

_So slow_ , he thought. _Too slow._ Out loud, he mused, “The relays. EDI. The Reapers.”

“And the geth,” Tali added, so quietly he almost missed it. “Admiral Hackett said the geth were affected the same way EDI was. Turned off like a switch was flipped.” She paused, then took a step toward him, tilting her face up so he could see the flicker of the lights of her eyes. “What did she do, Garrus?”

“Saved us,” he said, each word weighty as a million lives.

“At what cost?”

“Ten billion people over here die, so twenty billion over there can live.” He put a hand to his head, realizing too late it was the one still bleeding. The angle of Tali’s head was the equivalent of a quarian frown; he’d learned that much over the years. She didn’t say anything, though. He guessed she’d learned that much about _him._ “Dammit, Shepard. Dammit.”

For the space of several long minutes, Shepard’s soft music was the only sound in the room.

Finally, Tali said, “I’ve been feeding her pets.”

Sheer force of will let him pull himself together enough to reply, “That’s why the little guy’s looking so fat. So have I.”

“I should have known,” she said. “I should have asked.” So suddenly he almost jerked away before he realized what she was doing, she reached out and grabbed his hand. It felt wrong to feel only three long fingers curled around his instead of five shorter, slenderer ones. “Garrus, I’m so—”

“Don’t,” he said, unable to keep the low note of keening from his subharmonics. “Not yet.” He squeezed her hand. “But thank you.”

“A few more days,” she said. “That’s all.”

_It’s an eternity_ , he thought, but out loud he said nothing.

“We should—”

“Go?” he interrupted, wanting to smile. His mandibles gave a sick little flutter. “Yeah.”

“Maybe—”

“Yeah,” he repeated. “I know. Maybe.”

He left Shepard’s music on, as always. He didn’t look back. Forward. They were in the elevator, decidedly not talking about the histories of their people, when he felt the ship begin to shudder and move around them, lifting skyward after its long rest.

Forward was the way to go.


	2. Out of the Dead Land

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a very brief note that this story will contain Citadel spoilers (consider all three games and all their DLC fair game), and will doubtless contain references to the other stories in the continuity of this Shepard and this Garrus.

When it came right down to it, Garrus didn’t like rain any more than he liked cold.

In Vancouver, rain and cold somehow combined to create a third meteorological phenomenon, infinitely more miserable than either of the others on their own. And it never seemed to stop. He wasn’t sure how much of the murkiness in the sky was left over from the terrible damage the Reapers had wrought and how much was just natural cloud cover, but they’d been planetside nearly three days and he had yet to see anything resembling the sun. When he bothered looking out the window, he was met with endless grey. Grey rainclouds snagged on grey mountains above white-frothed grey sea. Grey husks of buildings, half-toppled like broken toys. Grey wounds scarring the landscape, left behind by Reaper lasers.

Reminded uncomfortably of London, and of everything they’d lost there alongside everything they’d gained, he pulled the curtains closed. It was still grey inside his room—grey blankets, grey pillow, grey rations, grey chair at a grey desk—but at least nothing was broken. The rain pattered against the glass, a ceaseless refrain. After a while, Expel 10 drowned it out.

He kept to the quarters he’d been given the way he’d kept to the battery on the _Normandy_ , though here, at least, he did have Shepard’s hamster for company. He didn’t know what would happen to the fish, but an aquarium wasn’t as easy to transport as a little glass box. The VI would take care of them. Maybe the _Normandy_ ’s next CO would also have a thing for Khar’shan snapping eels. It was probably his imagination, but the stupid rodent actually seemed to be getting used to him. Finally. Once or twice, out of the corner of his eye, Garrus even saw it— _him_ , Shepard’s voice admonished, _he’s got a name, Garrus_ —completely out of his hidey hole, watching.

The first day, he tried to send messages to anyone who might know the whereabouts of his family. It didn’t go well. Comms were down everywhere, ships were still limping in via FTL, and military messages were claiming virtually all available bandwidth. _Do you know what happened to the Vakarians?_ simply didn’t have priority. The harried-looking boy in Alliance blue who brought Garrus his lunch said he’d heard from a friend who’d heard from a friend, who’d overheard the brass talking, that they were trying to gather the remaining galactic leaders in Vancouver, but he didn’t know if Primarch Victus or Urdnot Wrex were amongst them. The kid thought both of them had survived the battle, though. Some said the Council was alive; others said they were dead. Every bit of truth was painted with eighteen shades of rumor, and nothing was certain except Hackett was alive, in charge, and not planning to abandon Vancouver any time soon.

Also on the first day, Liara came to see him. He told her he was fine; she looked as though she didn’t believe him. “And you?” he asked in return, “how’re you handling the sudden lack of information?”

The look in her eyes made him regret asking, but she replied easily enough, “Perhaps I ought to see it as a vacation.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed. “But somehow I doubt you will.”

“No more than you,” she said softly, her fingers warm against the back of his unarmored hand.

On the second day, he sat down with the busted, burned armor he’d been wearing in London and tried to make it usable again without thinking about other broken suits of armor he’d tried to fix over the years. The hole he’d left on purpose after Omega. Shepard’s shattered gear on the _Valiant._  

That didn’t go well, either. Not the fixing or the not-thinking.

He hadn’t looked all that closely at the armor afterward, but now? Now he figured he owed Doctor Chakwas his life yet again. He even had to admit that maybe—just maybe—Shepard had been right to send him back after all. Looking at the state of his suit, he didn’t know how he’d managed to remain conscious, let alone hobble to the ship mostly upright. Most of the internal systems were fried. The silvery-grey was blackened and most of the blue enamel was melted. A few of the more flammable pieces were just… gone.

Frankly, he’d seen Cannibals with better gear. Sobering.

Tali stopped by and gave his efforts an incredulous lift of her shoulders. “I once told Shepard with some eezo and a circuit board I could have a piece of scrap metal making precision jumps, but even I don’t think that suit’s salvageable, Garrus.”

“Maybe not,” he said, “but my dad gave it to me.” _It was Shepard’s favorite._ “Not like I’ve got any—”

“Guns to calibrate?” she offered. His mandibles flicked weakly. Still, she helped him scrape off the worst of the surface damage, and she _almost_ fixed the onboard computer. (Or so she said. It still looked pretty screwed to him. And _almost_ wasn’t going to deliver a dose of medi-gel when he needed it.)

On the third day, when the summons came, Garrus thought about ignoring it. He wasn’t Alliance, wasn’t tied to their chain of command, and even though he’d suspected it was coming, he found when the time came, he didn’t much feel like talking. If they’d sent anyone other than James Vega to collect him, he might’ve just blown them off altogether.

“Scars,” Vega said.

“Jimmy.”

“Gonna stay in there all day?”

“Thinking about it.”

“He just wants to talk, you know. Wants to know how it all went down from our end. He’s good, man.”

Garrus snorted, leaning back against his desk. It was probably too flimsy to bear his weight, but after an ominous creak it held. “Ahh, Vega. Spoken like someone who wasn’t around for the first hundred life-threatening missions Hackett threw our way. I’m not just carrying a grudge. I’m carrying a hundred of them. Because Shepard never did. And someone had to.”

“Hey, everyone was just doing their—”

“Jobs. Yeah. I know. Funny thing about grudges. Don’t always make sense.”

Vega shifted from one foot to the other. He didn’t have to say anything. Reluctantly, Garrus pushed himself away from the desk on a sigh and followed the big man out into the rain.

#

Admiral Steven Hackett looked as tired as it was possible for a person to look. Garrus didn’t think he was imagining gaunter cheeks, or deeper creases at the corners of his eyes, and the dark shadows of exhaustion beneath those eyes were purple enough to be bruises. The eyes themselves were clear and sharp as ever, however, and by the time he turned to face Garrus, the admiral’s posture dared him to question his fitness. Garrus didn’t.

“Mr. Vakarian.”

Garrus didn’t bother correcting him. He hadn’t been C-Sec for a long time, and what good was a Reaper advisor in a post-Reaper world? He had no idea where he currently stood in the Hierarchy. Or if the Hierarchy was at all functional. _Mister_ was quaint, and rather human, but at least it was polite. “Admiral.”

“Thank you for speaking with me.”

“I haven’t said anything yet,” Garrus replied. “And I’m not entirely sure I will. I fail to see why I’m here. I’ve worked for a lot of agencies over the years, but none of them were the Alliance.”

Hackett regarded him with appraising eyes. Everything about the man’s demeanor was calculated to project an image of casual control—the stance, the hands linked behind his back. It was the first time Garrus had ever seen the man out of a dress uniform. But he wasn’t fooled. Or taken in. “I’ve debriefed the _Normandy_ ’s Alliance crew and most of Commander Shepard’s other recruits. They say she… trusted you.”

Garrus was also tired. Too tired for games, certainly. Tired enough not to care if his attitude instigated an intergalactic incident. At the end of the day, he didn’t particularly feel he owed Hackett anything. Garrus had been the one who saw Shepard’s face after Aratoht, after all. And after Alchera. “There’s no need to be disingenuous. You know we’re—were lovers. It was hardly a secret.” He stumbled over the past tense and tried not to feel like a traitor for using it at all. “If you want to take her to task for breaking regulations, you should know she doesn’t play favorites. She never lets her feelings get in the way of her work. Yeah, I was at her six most of the time. If you have a problem with the way she runs her—”

“You misunderstand me,” Hackett interrupted. “Commander Shepard’s personal relationships are not the subject of this conversation.”

Garrus’s mandibles fluttered. He wondered if Hackett knew turian expressions well enough to know how disconcerted he was.

“I would like to recruit you, Mr. Vakarian. For a rather… sensitive mission.”

Garrus shook his head, wondering how rude it would be to just head for the door. “If you need a pet Spectre, send Alenko. I’m sure he’ll gladly ask how high if you order him to jump.”

It was a nice use of a human idiom, if he said so himself. Joker, he thought, would’ve been proud.

The only outward indication of Hackett’s disapproval was the brief compression of his lips and a faint crease between his brows. His voice, however, was still damnably calm when he replied, “In spite of his Spectre status, Major Alenko’s allegiances are too well known. He bleeds Alliance blue. This isn’t an Alliance mission. It can’t be.”

“Of course not,” Garrus said. “Look, I’m not her. I’m not going to drop everything and race to do your bidding just because you ask. Expect. Demand.”

Here, finally, Garrus saw a crack in the man’s cool demeanor. Hackett’s eyes narrowed and his shoulders stiffened with tension Garrus never would have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it. “She was an Alliance Marine—”

Garrus gestured dismissively, sweeping his hand to one side. “Sure she was. When you wanted her to be. Just like she was a Spectre when you wanted that. Just like she was nobody when she woke from the dead wearing the wrong color uniform.”

“If this is about her time with Cerberus—”

“She was never _with_ Cerberus,” Garrus snapped, so sharp and so sudden, and subharmonics dripping with such disgust, he made Hackett blink.

After a long moment, Hackett said slowly, “I… understand.”

“Do you? Do you really?” The strange thing was he thought perhaps—maybe for the first time—Hackett _did_. Garrus exhaled and felt the fight going out of him. Damn. “So what is it? You think you can succeed where Alenko failed? Convince me to see the error of my ways? Stand up before a grieving galaxy and give them some kind of closure? That _is_ something you can get Alenko to do, because I sure as hell won’t.”

Hackett said nothing, but as Garrus spoke, he turned his back and pulled open a drawer. His desk, Garrus noted, was just as rickety and grey as the one in his own quarters. From the drawer, Hackett removed a black velvet box, thin and not quite square. He handed it over with a strange, heady sort of ceremony that made Garrus’ stomach drop. He couldn’t stop his hand from shaking when he reached for it.

Garrus wanted to throw it back in Hackett’s face, to storm from the room, to walk and walk and keep on walking until things started to make sense. Instead, he lifted the hinged lid.

The set of dog tags within was battered, the edges dinged, a little of the red enamel worn. He didn’t need to flip them over to know whose they were.

He couldn’t swallow his low note of grief. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the admiral’s expression. “You found her.”

The ragged sound of Hackett’s inhale was enough to make Garrus look at him. The expression wasn’t the pity Garrus expected, or even the sorrow that would have made sense. It was anger. Blind anger. “On the contrary,” the admiral ground out. “Those were _sent_ to us. With a lock of hair and fingernail clippings folded into a scrap of paper. Even with things the way they are, it didn’t take much to find out the DNA was a match. Granted, after what happened with the Cerberus clone—”

“No,” Garrus whispered, the word hardly louder than the breath of air it took to speak it. He cleared his throat. Tried again. “No. These are her tags. Not a copy.”

Hackett pushed a hand through his hair and paced three steps before turning to face Garrus again. A hint of the dreadful weight seemed to lift from the older man’s shoulders. “I… had hoped you’d be able to confirm it.”

Garrus felt himself nodding, agreeing, but his thoughts were elsewhere, racing around possibilities and plans. Hopes. Fears. His visor beeped a little warning about his heart rate. He ignored it.

“And that’s the sensitive mission?” Garrus finally managed. “You want me to find her?”

“We’ll give you a ship, Mr. Vakarian. Supplies. Resources. Crew. None of them flying Alliance colors overtly, I’m afraid. We cannot be seen interfering. Too many things hang in the balance.”

“I don’t give a shit about politics.”

“Nevertheless. Hating them doesn’t make them cease to exist.”

“This is _Shepard._ You _owe_ her.”

Hackett inclined his head. “Please don’t imagine I’m unaware just how much I owe the commander, Mr. Vakarian.”

“I want the _Normandy_.”

Under any other circumstances, Garrus would have felt proud of the way he made Hackett flinch. The man’s eyes widened. His heartbeat spiked. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s Shepard’s ship.”

The cool mask slammed down again, and the only evidence he’d ever been unsettled at all was the slightly-elevated heart rate revealed by Garrus’ visor. “It’s the Alliance’s ship.”

“It’s _Shepard’s_ ship.” Garrus straightened to his full height and glared down at the admiral. To his credit, Hackett didn’t give an inch. He merely tilted his head slightly upward and met Garrus glare for glare. “I want the _Normandy._ It’s not negotiable. I want a say in the crew. I don’t know what the hell’s going on with the Council, and I’m not demanding I be made a Spectre, but I need some kind of authority.”

Hackett looked like he wanted to sigh, but he didn’t.

Garrus clenched his hands into fists. “You’re asking me because you know I’ll do what it takes. I’m saying yes because if there’s a chance she’s alive out there, I won’t stop until I find her.”

“She may not be alive. We may be looking at another Cerberus situation. The balance of power is entirely in flux at the moment, Mr. Vakarian, and she has been a prominent figure for the past four years.”

“You think they want to use her for _leverage_?”

Hackett arched an eyebrow. “You don’t? Otherwise why the subterfuge? Why not just send her home?” The admiral lifted a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “This isn’t a smash-and-grab mission, Mr. Vakarian. If you go in with guns blazing you may find only a fresh corpse no longer worth the trouble, and the galaxy won’t know where to lay the blame. The Reapers wanted us dead. The people who’d go through this trouble? They’re more dangerous. They want power.”

Garrus inhaled, held the breath, and exhaled slowly. Then he said, “I can be subtle.”

“So your dossier says.” Hackett gave him a shrewd look. “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise. Very well. You’ll have the _Normandy_. Doubtless her pilot, and as much of her crew as is willing to part with their Alliance blues for the time being, if you’re amenable. It’ll take a few days to arrange. No more than a week.” Before Garrus could speak his rising protest, Hackett explained, “With things the way they are, everything takes three times as long. We have no idea what you’re up against out there, and I’m not sending you in blind. Don’t worry about the time you’re landlocked. Use it. I’ll get you as much comm clearance as I’m able; find yourself some people you trust.”

Garrus inclined his head, half to accept and half to hide his shame that he’d been about to argue. Hackett was, of course, right. He could do a lot in a few days, if he didn’t cloister himself in his little grey room. “Sir.”

Hackett huffed a breath, but the faint curve of his lips was wry. “Wondered what it’d take to get a ‘sir’ out of you. Go on, Vakarian. We’ve both got work to do.”

When Garrus reluctantly proffered the black velvet box, however, Hackett only shook his head. “I’d’ve given them to you anyway,” he said. “See they get back to their rightful owner.”

Garrus didn’t immediately return to his grim little room after leaving Hackett’s command post. Instead, he walked the streets, shoulders hunched against the ceaseless weather, until he reached the swath of sooty sand separating walking path from water. A Reaper corpse lay partially submerged in the bay, silent and still and still too huge to comprehend, even through the misty veil of rain. Dead, yes. Garrus found himself wondering what would be done with all the hulking bodies left behind. His shiver had little to do with the cold.

Halfway back to his grey quarters, Garrus caught sight of something strange out of the corner of his eye. Color. One lone tree, swaying in the wind and battered by drizzle, had valiantly put forth a few tentative pink flowers. He stared at them for a long time. Then he flipped open the box and gazed down at Shepard’s dog tags. Rain beaded on their surface, but the grey? Suddenly the grey didn’t see quite so grim after all. 

Not with a little hope in the world.


	3. The Lady of Situations

Someone was in his room.

Garrus might’ve had logistics and plans and lists running through his head faster than he could keep up, but enough people had tried to kill him over the years that he wasn’t careless. The thin wall of the prefab unit did little to hide the heat signature within. Turian, he thought. Staying still. He didn’t think it was an ambush, unless it was someone stupid enough not to bring backup. Still, it didn’t hurt to be cautious. Shifting the velvet box to one hand, he unclipped his sidearm with the other, pushed the handle down with his elbow, and nudged the door open with a shoulder.

The woman seated at his desk didn’t turn her head when he entered. Even without the sudden familiarity of scent and the information revealed by his visor’s biometrics, he’d have recognized the curve of her skull and the elegant crest of her fringe anywhere. Try as he might, he just couldn’t comprehend how _his little sister_ had come to be _here_ , here of all places, when last he’d heard she’d been just barely escaping Palaven.

Not that he was complaining. The flood of sudden relief nearly made him stagger.

Without looking up from whatever she was doing to his belongings—stealing his good mods, probably, if past experience held—she snorted and said, “I’d’ve jammed your sensors and hid under a tactical cloak if I didn’t want you to know I was here, G.” He swallowed, lowering his gun and trying to find his voice. Back still to him, his sister lifted his burned, busted computer and said, “This is beyond saving, by the way. Can’t believe you even tried. Though you’ve gotten better since I last scoffed at you while peeking over your shoulder.”

“I, uh,” he shook his head. “Wasn’t me. Friend of mine. Quarian. Doesn’t matter. Look, Solana, what are—”

Solana propped one arm against the desk, turned at the waist, and smirked. “That explains that. It’s damned precision work.”

“ _Solana_ ,” he repeated, ignoring her little jab. “What are you _doing_ here?”

“ _I’ve_ been here for ages. Would you believe it’s been raining for twenty-three days? Straight?” He sent her an incredulous look and she explained, “A scout team picked us up on Palaven, so when the call to mobilize came, we were pulled along for the ride. Warship wasn’t going to go off-course just to drop off a few civilians.” Her mandibles gave a little flick of distress and she bowed her head. “Just as well. From what I gather, numbers out of the Citadel evac aren’t looking great.”

Garrus pushed back against the sea of faces—names—colleagues, friends, refugees—threatening to pull him under. Later. Not until—later. “And… Dad? He’s—is he—”

Solana sighed. “Tired. Sad. But healthy. Working with Primarch Victus to keep the turian encampment running smoothly, though Spirits only know what we’re going to do when the dextro rations run out. He’d have come if I’d told him, but I didn’t want to get his hopes up. This is the fourth time I’ve been down here on rumors the _Normandy_ was back. Not as easy as keeping an eye on passenger manifests, with intel the way it is. Might as well be sending messages by bird. Or rabid pyjak. Does this planet even have pyjaks?” She shook her head, and he saw how clearly she, too, was tired and sad. “Garrus,” she said, and his stomach dropped at the shift in her voice. “I—we all—I’m sorry. About her. About… everything. I can’t imagine.”

He thought she probably could, a little. Unless she knew something he didn’t, the man she loved was, at the moment, as lost to her as Shepard was to him. Perhaps forever. Even before—even before the Crucible, it had been weeks since he’d had any word at all from his Reaper Task Force’s second-in-command. And even if Naxus had managed to survive, Trebia was a long, long way from Sol in a galaxy suddenly bereft of mass relays.

He took another step forward, setting the velvet box down and glancing at the order his sister had made of the mess he’d left on his desk when he went to talk to Hackett.

That step brought him close enough to notice what he hadn’t earlier: his desk’s fragile little human chair was pushed to one side and Solana was sitting in something else entirely. Mechanical. With wheels. She didn’t quite fit properly; it was a human contraption and not a turian one. She’d obviously done some remodeling—unsurprisingly—to better accommodate her spurs.

Or her right spur, in any case. The left was gone, along with the rest of her leg below the knee.

“Ahh,” she said, before he could ask. She didn’t look down; her gaze focused straight ahead, at the grey curtains pulled closed to hide his grey view. “This. Yeah. I’d get up and hug you but I’m afraid you’ve got to come to me.”

“Dad said you _broke_ your leg.” Shock frayed his voice and left the edges harder and sharper than he intended.

She lifted her shoulders and tilted her head. It unnerved him that she could smile, though he wasn’t blind enough to ignore the lingering pain in her eyes. “I did. Right off. Luckily my promising career was never in dance.”

“This isn’t a—”

She sighed, holding her hands wide in a placating gesture to silence him. “It did break. Badly. Multiple shattered bones badly. Told Dad to leave me behind badly. He wouldn’t. We were out of medi-gel, in the middle of nowhere. It got infected. By the time we got to the ship, it was too late for them to do anything except stop the infection from spreading.” Her subharmonics told him she wasn’t quite as nonchalant as she was trying to appear, but he didn’t draw attention to it. When she spoke again, it was in the weary voice of someone repeating words they’d already said over and over in an attempt to make them more palatable, more real, less terrifying, “They’ve made huge strides with clone-tissue replacement. Just as soon as things calm down again, I’ll be good as new.”

Because he still couldn’t find words to tell her how sorry he was—how glad she’d survived—how much he wished things were different, he crouched down beside her and she leaned forward to accept his embrace, wrapping her own arms tight around him. “Damn, Garrus,” she murmured against the curve of his cowl. “It’s good to see you.”

He let her go when she leaned back against his arms, and she swatted at him. “One pitying look and I’ll kill you in your sleep,” she said. “I’m fine. Look better than you. Do they feed you on that ship?”

Garrus couldn’t find a smile. Not even for his sister. He did reach for her hand and squeeze it. “If I can’t pity you, you can’t pity me.”

She nodded, but her tawny eyes didn’t leave his face and he found he had to look away first.

The expression on her face made her look too much like their mother, and, unbidden, some of the last words his Mom had ever spoken to him rose in his head and refused to be pushed away again. _What have you seen, to make you so sad, so hard, so broken? What have you lost, to make you so afraid?_

_Oh, Mom. I didn’t know. I didn’t know how bad it could get. I didn’t have the first damned clue._

“I am sorry I don’t have any word from Palaven,” he added, though it was hardly a cheerier subject. “Nothing recent, anyway, and I don’t suppose…?”

Shaking her head, Solana guided her wheelchair away from the desk. “It’s a long way without relays.”

Garrus made a note to ask Hackett about the relays, too, when next they spoke. They’d built the damned Crucible from nothing in mere months, and all those great minds were still assembled, presumably working on the problem of the disrupted mass relay network. Even without convenient blueprints, they had to have _something_ to work with.

Though in a strange twist of finding the positive in a resounding negative, he supposed it meant even with a month’s head start, the people who had Shepard couldn’t have gone _too_ far. Hell. Maybe they’d never left Earth at all, though evidently Hackett seemed to think they weren’t planetside. Garrus closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Even the air smelled grey. The vividness of the red on Shepard’s dog tags and the faint sweet pink of the flowers came to mind. _I don’t know what to do with grey._  

One damned thing at a time.

Shepard had a saying for this too. Needle in a haystack. He’d never seen a haystack, but he understood the meaning well enough to feel a moment of sinking dread.

“Something I can help with?” Solana asked gently.

“No,” he replied automatically. He opened his eyes in time to catch her frown and he sighed. “Maybe. Say you want to hide the most recognizable woman in the galaxy. How do you do it? Where do you put her? And why the hell do you bother taunting her people, when most of them are already convinced she’s dead?”

“Garrus,” she said, and though perhaps it wasn’t quite pity, he could hear worry in her voice, and fear.

He flipped open the velvet box with force enough to jangle the dog tags within. Solana reached out and flipped one of the tags over. Running the tip of her talon over the name pressed into the metal, she shook her head and hummed a low note of distress.

“I’ll find her,” he said.

She closed the box again and pushed it away as if the sight of it hurt her. “What else do you have to go on?”

Garrus thought about lying, about deflecting, but in the end, settled for the truth. “Not much. Proof of DNA.”

“Garrus,” she repeated, too quietly.

“I know,” he replied.

“She could be—”  

“I know.”

“They could be trying to extort—”

He lifted his head and met her gaze for gaze, unflinching. “Solana. I know. It doesn’t matter.”

Pacing to the window, he threw back the curtains. The sun still hid, but the rain had temporarily stopped; the absence of pattering drops against the glass was oddly unnerving.

“I’m not asking you to give up,” she said. “I’m just asking you to think about all the possibilities.” Outside, a team of techs in Alliance blue was dragging a fragment of broken Reaper—a leg, Garrus thought, a broken leg—through the mud and toward some unknown scrap heap. Graveyard. Whatever they were supposed to call it.

“This isn’t the first kidnapping case I’ve worked, Sol.”

_Or the first murder._

“Sure. But you’ve got no clues—”

“Yet.”

“No crime scene to comb for evidence. No—”

“I get it.”

“Do you?” she asked plaintively, without accusation. “Because I understand better now. The last time she… you disappeared for two years with hardly a trace, Garrus. You’ll have to forgive me my concern. I… I don’t want to lose you like that again.”

“This isn’t the same thing.” One of the techs slipped in the mud and went sprawling, taking three of his fellows down with him in a tangle of limbs. A fifth jumped backward, avoiding the spill, and then laughed as he helped his friends up. Garrus shook his head. Laughing. Dragging Reaper tech around and _laughing_.

In that instant, the laughter was more alien to him than the remnants of sentient machine.

He resented their mirth. Shepard, he thought, would have joined in it. And then she’d probably have headed out to help them pull their burden wherever they were taking it.

“And are you… I’m sorry to say it, G, but are you sure you can trust them? The people who want to send you off to look for her? Spirits know you’re like a varren with a pyjak in its teeth when you’ve got something under your plates. Are they sending you out to chase shadows so you won’t be the voice of dissension, so you won’t interrupt? Are they feeding you hope to keep you quiet?”

This, finally, was enough to pull his attention away from the mud-splattered, still-laughing techs outside. Solana had moved closer while his attention was elsewhere. It unnerved him to have to peer down so far to look her in the eyes. “Keep quiet about what?” he asked.

She scowled, mandibles flicking in irritation he didn’t understand. “You had that Battlespace reporter on your ship the whole time. What do you think she was doing? Broadcasting cooking tips and fashion advice? Commander Shepard might be the most recognizable woman in the galaxy, G, but I guarantee you’re the most recognizable turian.”

The thought made him vaguely uncomfortable, but he only shrugged and said, “So?”

Solana flung her hands up. “Spirits, Garrus! Did you miss the part where your commander became the galaxy’s most effective politician? Peace between the turians and the krogan? Peace between the quarians and the _geth_? A united galactic force fighting the damned Reapers far from their own homeworlds? You’d better believe if she were here, the whole galaxy would be looking to her for guidance right now.”

“I’m not Shepard. And I’m no politician.”

After a long-suffering sigh, she explained as if to a small child, “You were the Turian Hierarchy’s Reaper Advisor, G, and against all odds we’ve just decisively won a war against the enemy you prepared the Hierarchy to fight. You were Commander Shepard’s right hand. More. Much more, according to the tabloids. Wake up. You’re a politician whether you want to be or not. People will look to you because they want to look to her, and you’re the closest thing they’ve got.”

Before he could think of a reply that wasn’t just outright denial, they were interrupted by a shout from outside.

“Vakarian!” A moment later, the door slammed inward, bouncing off the metal wall with a heavy clang. Garrus almost reached for his gun again, until Zaeed Massani, looking as ill-tempered as usual, strode in. “Where’s your goddamned security? Could’ve strolled in and blown you to shit while you had your trousers down with no one the wise—oh. Uh. Didn’t think you’d have company.”

Any other time, the sudden shift in Zaeed’s expression would have made him laugh. Instead, Garrus just  snorted, and Solana gave a little wave. “Zaeed Massani, meet my sister, Solana Vakarian. Sol, stay away from him. He’s bad news.”

“Says the bastard who took down half of Omega with one gun and a bad fucking attitude.”

Garrus did not miss the speculative glance his sister threw his way. She said, “Sounds like quite the story.”

“Sol—” Garrus began to protest.

“Story! You saying you don’t know? This bloody bastard—”

“Has work to do,” Garrus interrupted. “After he sees his sister back to the turian encampment.”

“Like hell,” Zaeed growled. “I know you’re in here feeling goddamn sorry for yourself, and you’re going to drink a fucking pint or ten with me whether you like it or not, and whatever shit you think needs calibrating can wait until another goddamned day.”

“I’ve got time,” Solana added in her most obnoxious just-try-to-stop-me voice. “Wouldn’t say no to a drink myself.”

“That’s more like it.”

“I’m the Vakarian with the winning personality,” she said sweetly. “He’s the one with—”

“The stick up his arse?”

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, mandibles flicking into a brief smile. “I think I like you already, Mr. Massani.”

“Just Zaeed,” he said.

Garrus found a break in the banter long enough to ask, “What the hell are you doing here, Zaeed?”

Zaeed lifted his eyebrows and his lips twisted. “Nice to see you too. Met up with the big krogan. Wrex. He said the Alliance was regrouping here. Figured this’d be the best place to wait for one of you arseholes to show up and tell me what the fuck happened out there.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Garrus said, shaking his head, trying not to look at the sad little velvet box. “Though I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Over drinks. I’m not listening to that shit sober.” Garrus pretended not to understand the sudden ghost of emotion that flickered over Zaeed’s face before the merc returned his attention to Solana and said, “He really never told you about Omega?”

“He really never tells me anything.”

“Well, my girl, my stories are better, but I can bore you with one or two of his to warm up.”

Solana smirked. “I look forward to it. Especially if Garrus isn’t going to bother joining us…”

“Fine,” Garrus groaned. “ _Fine._ One drink. One.”

Before he left, Garrus snagged the dog tags from their box and tucked them into his own suit. For safekeeping, he told himself.

Zaeed was right, after all.

The security really was abominable.


	4. A Heap of Broken Images

_She is five years old._

_She is curled up under the table—no, in the bottom of the pantry, yes, the bottom of the pantry, trying not to sneeze because the bag of flour next to her has a tear in it and every time she moves another puff of it fills the little space she’s crammed herself into. She hid when she heard her parents come in from the garden; she’s supposed to be sleeping, but instead she went looking for the cookies Mama keeps hidden in the purple jar. She’ll be in big trouble if they find her, so she tries to keep very, very still while her parents stand just on the other side of the door and talk. Her left elbow hurts where she banged it against the door. The flour tickles her nose._

_“Dearest,” says her papa, low and quiet, in the serious voice he hardly ever uses. It scares her, the serious voice. She likes his laughing voice much better, like when he picks her up and swings her in a circle, or throws her as high as he can even though it always makes Mama shriek. It’s okay, because he never, ever drops her. “We can’t keep doing this. It’s worse every time.”_

_Her mama gives a little sob. “She keeps asking when she’ll have a brother or sister. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say.”_

_In the dark, breathing flour, trying not to get caught, she listens to her mama cry and cry and cry._

_Later, she crawls into her mama’s lap and rests her head on her chest, comforted by thump of the heartbeat under her ear and the arms that automatically curl around her. Her mama smells like the garden and cookies and roses._

_“Sweetheart,” Mama says, running her hand through her hair, pulling the tangles loose with gentle fingers. Every time she moves, the scent of roses rises from her wrists like a hug. “How did you get flour in your hair?”_

_“It’s okay, Mama,” she says. “It’s okay.”_

#

“Shit, man. She’s waking up.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. That stuff could keep a fucking elcor under for a week.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not enough. Look. Look at her eyes.”

“Fuck. Gimme a minute.”

“I don’t know if we’ve got a whole—okay. There she—”

#

_She is sixteen years old._

_Her hands are bleeding, her nails broken down to the quick from scrabbling up the rough-barked tree. Her left wrist throbs from when she fell and caught herself badly. The heavy weight of the screwdriver in her pocket is not as comforting as she wishes it was. She should’ve taken the gun. It was stupid not to take the gun. A screwdriver’s not going to help her up here. If she had the gun—_

_She can’t breathe. When she closes her eyes, even to blink, just to blink, she sees blood and fire and blood and her parents and a kitchen knife stuck in an alien chest and yellow paint bubbling and peeling and skin bubbling and peeling and so much blood._

_It’s so dumb, but she can’t stop thinking about (blood so much blood) the little bottle of rose perfume on her mother’s dresser. Every year her father buys her mother the same perfume for her birthday. Every year he jokes about how this is the year he can’t afford it. Every year her mother rolls her eyes and says, “I can live without, darling,” and every year he scowls like she’s mortally offended him, produces the shoddily-wrapped package, and sings, “But_ I _can’t, my wiiiild Irish Rose! The sweetest flower that grows!”_

 _(It is so embarrassing when her father sings. He sings_ all the time _. Blood and fire and bodies in the doorway. He will never sing again. So much screaming. So much screaming.)_

 _The world reeks of smoke and death and when she brings her wrist—her sore wrist, her aching wrist—to her nose, she inhales a ghost of rose._ If you listen I’ll sing you a sweet little song, of a flower that’s now drooped and dead… _She crept into her mother’s room before sneaking out. She stole three dabs of rose perfume. One for each wrist. One between her breasts. Brandon was definitely going to see her breasts this time. Three hours ago—only three hours ago—her whole universe revolved around the_ absolute necessity _of Brandon Deluca finally getting his hands on her boobs._

_She glances down. Her shirt is half-unbuttoned. A hickey is starting to darken the pale skin above her right breast. She’s probably got another on her neck. She bites her hand again to keep from screaming. The pain doesn’t even register anymore. The scent of stolen roses fills her nose. She can’t breathe. She can’t breathe._

_Later—days later, days that feel like months, like years—she is still sixteen years old, but she feels so much older. She is cold all the time. She sits wedged into the darkest corner she can find, with a book in her lap. Every once in a while she turns a page, though she hasn’t read a single word. The dark ink swims before her eyes. She thinks it’s poetry. The lines are short. One of the women in Alliance blue gave it to her; someone with red hair a few shades lighter than her own, who has eyes the same dark green as her mother’s. “If you look busy, fewer people will bother you,” the woman had said quietly, as she pushed the book into her freezing, bandaged hands._

_She tries to look busy all the time, but people still bother her and her hands won’t stop shaking._

_She’s washed her wrists a dozen times—two dozen—a hundred—but the memory of roses scrapes and scrapes and scrapes at her with its thorns._

#

“What do you think it means?”

“What?”

“Her eyelids. The look on her face. Is she dreaming?”

“Everybody dreams, dipshit.”

“She looks so messed up. Aren’t people supposed to look peaceful when they sleep?”

“Would you? If you were her? Now stop asking fucking questions and give her another dose. And strap her hands down. I don’t like the way she keeps scratching.”

#

_She is eighteen years old._

_Something is meant to happen on her eighteenth birthday. Something important._

_Oh, she knows she’s supposed to get ready for the party. Big party. Lots of important assholes she doesn’t know and doesn’t care to. Her foster ‘parents’ spare no expense when it comes to showing off, and she is their pet Mindoir survivor; they love showing her off. It’s practically their favorite pastime. She wonders how much their son resents it, but even though they’re almost the same age, they aren’t close enough for her to ask. Or for him to give an honest answer if she did._

_The party starts at seven. Hours and hours to get ready, as if she’ll actually use them for that purpose. Even when she’s_ trying _, it never takes more than half an hour. A dress hangs from her closet door. It’s probably worth more than the entire house on Mindoir, including all the furniture. She doesn’t know because she had exactly no hand in picking it out. No doubt it will fit like a glove anyway. That’s what money can buy. She hates the dress with the kind of hate that begs her to take it out back and burn it. It’s virginal white and looks uncomfortably like a wedding gown, right down to all the beading and rhinestones and embroidery defacing it. If she’d been consulted, she’d have chosen yellow, to remind her of her mother. Or blue, like her dad’s eyes and the Mindoir sky she still misses, even though the last time she saw it, it was full of stars and smoke. Something simple. Something real. Something her._

_On the vanity sits a tiny vial of expensive rose perfume, pale gold in a too-familiar cut-crystal bottle. An early birthday gift. She’d nearly dropped it when she opened the package. And then she’d nearly thrown it._

_“Don’t worry about the cost,” her foster… whatever-she-was had said, obviously misreading the sickened expression. “Nothing’s too dear for you. You’re practically part of the family!”_

_Practically._

_Like hell._

_For almost two years, she has lived with this family, has eaten dinners at their table and slept in the room they gave her. (The room is also white, with a lace-draped canopy bed and a vanity and a closet full of other clothes she also hates. If she ever meets the decorator they hired to fit out this room, she will personally break their nose.) For almost two years, she has gone to school and brought home excellent grades and not kissed any boys from calculus class. She has not unbuttoned her shirt or put a dab of perfume between her breasts. She answers questions, even when the answers are no one’s business but her own. She smiles, but rarely laughs. Laughter is too much like acceptance. She is polite, because her mother raised her to be polite and no matter how much she wants to swear or scream or run away—and she wants to do all these things on a daily basis—she’s not going to be a disappointment to her dead mom. It’s a code. Something to live by. Something worth living for._

_For almost two years, they have seen her every single day, and somehow none of them knows how much she hates white._

_Somehow none of them knows how much she hates the scent of roses._

_Still, when she lifts the little bottle to her nose, she remembers the feel of her mother’s hands gently pulling knots from her hair, and not all the memories are bad ones._

_She remembers that something is meant to happen on her eighteenth birthday._

_She’s been planning it for months._

_She’s been counting down, marking little red ‘x’s on her calendar._

_She is eighteen._

_She is—_

_She—_

_Later, something is supposed to change. She just has to remember. She just has to remember what it is._

#

“Who’s she talking to?”

“The fuck should I know?”

“I mean, who do you think?”

“You need to _stop_ thinking shit like that and pay attention to the monitors. And where’s the damned smell coming from?”

“Numbers are a little off, but she’s still under. What smell?”

“Some flowery shit. Can’t you smell it?”

“Nah. Never been able to smell right since I broke my nose. Maybe it’s her. You know, from the soap or whatever. I mean, they’ve been washing her hair and stuff, right?”

“Maybe you’re—fuck, is she waking up again?”

“You’re giving her more? Are you sure—”

“They said keep her under. What the hell d’you think I’m doing?”

“It’s just—”

“Shut up, asshole, and pass me that syringe.”

#

_She is eighteen years old and she dances until dawn in a white dress. She dances on a rose-scented terrace under stars that echo the splashes of rhinestones across the bodice of her gown. She dances until her feet hurt and she can’t breathe. She can’t breathe._


	5. The Rattle of the Bones

Garrus woke reaching for the empty side of the bed.

His hand, of course, found only air; the little grey cot in the little grey room wasn’t Shepard’s cabin with Shepard’s large bed or Shepard’s Citadel apartment with Shepard’s even larger bed. Beds. The shock of finding nothing under his searching hand was enough to bring him instantly upright, instantly awake.

In spite of his throbbing head—drinking with Zaeed was always a bad idea; drinking with Zaeed and Solana in a bar full of people determined to buy him drinks resulted in a hangover of actual hellish proportions—he was up, armored, and choking down yet another of the tasteless dextro ration bars before he could think too hard about the disturbing course his dreams had taken.

A waste of good sleep. That’s what he’d told Shepard once. He wasn’t going to let bad dreams be a waste of good waking hours, either. Not when he had so much to do.

When he found her, he could stop having nightmares about failing her.

So he rolled his shoulders, tilted his head from side to side until his neck gave a satisfying crack, and checked his omni-tool. True to Hackett’s word, evidently, messages were finally getting through; his priority must’ve been bumped. After so many months of constant worrying, it seemed incredible that he could look down and see his father’s name in his inbox arranging a meeting for later in the day. Primarch Victus had sent a similar request. Nothing from Hackett himself, yet. He almost smiled to see a message from Liara—of course Liara would find a way to get back into the system, no matter how limited it was—asking him if he’d come see her when he woke, and to bring Tali if he could find her. He sent a few brief responses, once again tucked Shepard’s dog tags into his own armor, and set out with renewed purpose. And lingering headache.

Outside, a faint light seeped through the clouds, so dim and watery Garrus had a hard time thinking of it as sunlight. Still, it wasn’t raining. That was something, he supposed. Shepard would’ve elbowed him—armor be damned—and told him to lighten up.“Like the sky,” she’d say, one side of her mouth pulled up in the teasing smile she saved for him. “Get it? Lighten? Up? Sunlight? Sky?”

“Yeah, I get it,” he said aloud, and one of the loitering Alliance techs shot him a swift, concerned glance before hastening away. “You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are.”

She’d have laughed at that, he knew.

He walked faster, to keep from thinking about how much he missed that laugh.

Winding his way through the muddy, makeshift streets, Garrus followed the directions Tali had given him. Though he saw evidence of her presence—evidently Chatika was mid-retrofit—she was no longer in her quarters.

Instead of heading immediately to Liara, he approached an Alliance lieutenant whose dark hair was pulled back into a tail similar to the one Shepard wore. Her face was upturned, eyes closed, catching the brief warmth as a sunbeam broke the cloud cover.

“Excuse me, Lieutenant?”

The young woman startled, taking a step back, and looked around swiftly as if to make certain he was speaking to her. A faint flush rose in her cheeks before she fumbled a salute. “Sir?” she replied. “Sir! Can I help you, sir?”

His mandibles flicked at the abundance of sirs, but he only said, “Don’t suppose you’ve seen, uh, Admiral Tali’Zorah vas Normandy?”

“I have, sir!” The woman practically bounced on her toes as she broke into a vast grin. He considered taking a step back of his own. “I believe—I’m almost certain, sir—she was headed to, well. To the graveyard, sir.”

He tilted his head. “The graveyard?”

“Some folks call it the hospital, but… well. I’ve never seen a hospital like that, sir, begging your pardon.”

This time the flare of his mandibles was slower, almost a smile. “No need to beg my pardon, Lieutenant. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh! Sorry, sir! It’s a warehouse, sir. It’s… it’s where they’re keeping the geth, sir. The broken ones. All the ones that just… shut down, sir.”

He couldn’t have said exactly what the lieutenant saw in his expression, but she straightened to stiff attention and saluted again. “Sorry, sir,” she said. “That was… thoughtless. After everything. You just head down this street here and take a left. It’s near the broken bridge, sir. You can’t miss it, sir, but someone will point you in the right direction if you lose your way.”

He nodded, but before he could turn away, she shifted uncomfortably and bowed her head. “Sir? Thank you. And… we’re all—I’m— _I’m_ sorry, sir. I-I was on Elysium, you know. My family lived there. During the Blitz. She saved my life even before she saved the whole damned galaxy. I joined up because I wanted to be like her.” Her dark eyes shone a little. “I can’t thank her, but I can thank you, sir.”

Garrus nodded again, briskly, but before he’d gone three steps he turned back. The lieutenant was still watching him, and she ducked her head, embarrassed, when his gaze met hers. “Can I ask your name, Lieutenant?”

“Bane,” she said. “Eleanor Bane, sir.”

“Thank you for your help, Lieutenant Bane. Eleanor. And Shepard… she’d thank you too. She’d have given you hell for the overabundance of courtesies, she’d have been uncomfortable with the air of hero worship, and then she’d have told you you were a credit to the uniform and thanked you for your service. She’d have said something to make you laugh. She was good at that. Then she’d have clapped you on the shoulder and told you she should go, and as you watched her walk off you’d feel like the luckiest person in the whole damned galaxy, just to have had a conversation with her.”

Eleanor Bane blinked her wide eyes, and tears fell from the corners to leave shining tracks upon her cheeks. So he laid a hand on her shoulder and said, “You’re a credit to the uniform. Thank you for your service. I should go.”

Her laugh was barely more than a breath, but it was a laugh. He found a smile for her, small and brief, and when he walked away he heard Shepard’s louder, more infectious laugh ringing in his head.

#

Following the lieutenant’s directions, he found the warehouse without much difficulty, and though he’d thought himself somewhat prepared by the words _graveyard_ and _hospital_ , the reality still took him aback. Tali’s purple envirosuit was a bright spot of color in the vast, dim room. Though she was directing a team of other quarian techs, they were dwarfed by the magnitude of still, silent bodies around them, row after row after row.

Tali waved and began weaving her way toward him. “You left your room,” she said.

“Ahh, Tali, stating the obvious.” 

“I don’t suppose you’re here to help?”

“I would,” he said, gazing down at a geth trooper whose askew limbs made him think of a discarded toy. He’d taken out dozens of the little bastards in his day, and yet he felt a strange pang of sorrow to see these ones simply… gone. Empty. Like EDI. Strange how _dead_ and not just _non-functional_ seemed better terminology. “But I need to talk to you, and Liara needs to talk to both of us.”

“And they’re not going anywhere,” Tali added, sighing softly. She passed along a few instructions to her team before falling in at his side. When they stepped out into the fresh air, he thought he caught a momentary glimpse of blue sky. Wonder of wonders.

Tali wasn’t looking at the sky. Her shoulders were hunched and she kicked listlessly at a muddy stone at her feet. It went skittering away until it finally landed in a puddle. “I don’t understand. They’re not damaged. Everything looks right. I can’t fix the problem if I don’t know where the problem is.”

“Like EDI,” Garrus said.

“Exactly like EDI.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense. Other machines are functional. It’s obviously something to do with the Reapers, but… EDI and the geth existed before their programs were modified by Reaper code. We just have to… bring them back online. Right?”

Garrus shrugged. “Oh, for a geth repair manual. Don’t suppose your people have those lying around?”

“Very funny.” She stumbled, and Garrus reached out, grabbing her arm and keeping her upright before she landed in a puddle of her own. When she regained her balance, her posture remained thoughtful. “But my father’s research might… actually be helpful. I’ll have to—keelah. I’ll have to see if any of that work is applicable here.”

While she hypothesized, Garrus watched the people around them and his sister’s words came back to haunt him. _People will look to you because they want to look to her, and you’re the closest thing they’ve got._ They _were_ garnering an unusual amount of attention. People stopped what they were doing to look at them. Some simply stared. Others saluted.

Even respectful attention made his plates itch. He didn’t know how Shepard did it. Made him want to find a sniper’s perch with cover at his six. They were too damned _visible_.

The war might be over, but any soldier who stopped worrying about the possibility of bullets was a step closer to death, in his opinion. Garrus walked a little faster, and when the opportunity came to take a turn off the main road, he took it. The angle of Tali’s head said she thought he was crazy, but he was used to that.

 _Better safe than sorry_ echoed in his head, and he wasn’t sure if it was his thought or something of Shepard’s. Either way.

#

Somehow, Liara had managed to find not one but _three_ working monitors, and they were perched precariously on a desk that only looked slightly sturdier than the one in his quarters. All were scrolling information more quickly than he could keep up. Glyph bobbed at Liara’s side, looking a little dim, and the drone did not greet them. Insufficient power supply, probably. 

“Garrus,” Liara said without looking up. “Tali. It’s good to see you.”

He snorted. “What happened to vacation?”

Her smile reflected, ghostly, on the monitor’s screen. “I might ask you the same question.” She tapped the leftmost monitor. “Your name has come up more frequently even than I thought it might today, and on extremely encrypted feeds. Admiral Hackett? The primarch?”

Garrus shrugged. “What can I say? I’m popular.”

“More than you know,” Liara added, devoid of humor. “I have a fraction of my network available, and Admiral Hackett’s encryption is better than most, but I’m quite adept at picking up anything to do with the ship. The retrofit order has been stalled, and the _Normandy_ has been requested for a reconnaissance mission. Do you… do you know anything about it?”

“How secure are you here?”

At this, Liara finally turned away from her screens, her eyes wide. “Garrus, what—”

“How secure?”

Liara blinked. “This is, I believe, the most secure prefabricated unit in the city of Vancouver. Even the relatively benign closed-circuit feeds nearby have been convinced to look elsewhere in a fifty-foot radius of the building.”

Garrus nodded and still ran a cursory sweep for anything she might have missed. Tali, he noted, was running another.

“I would be insulted if you were anyone else,” Liara said, arms crossed but smiling faintly. Her brow remained worried.

Garrus shut down his omni-tool, strode to the window, and closed the curtain. “You’d understand if you’d seen the shit the Illusive Man installed.”

Tali made a disgusted noise.

“Very well,” Liara said. “I will forgive you if you explain.”

Garrus took a deep breath and then released it slowly before saying, “There’s been a development.”

Tali froze. “Keelah! Do you mean—”

“Shepard,” Liara whispered. Then, louder, “Are you—Garrus, I haven’t seen anything on my feeds. Anything except the huge memorial Admiral Hackett is preparing. Are you certain?”

“Thanks for asking if I’m certain and not if I’m crazy,” he said mildly. He drew Shepard’s dog tags from their hiding place and let them swing lazily from his hand. Tali’s inhale was audible. Liara only stared, but her eyes filled with tears. “Pretty sure the memorial’s a front, since Hackett gave me the intel. She’s out there. He wants me to find her. I want you to help. Both of you.”

“He’s giving you the _Normandy_?” Tali asked. “That’s the reconnaissance mission?

Garrus inclined his head. “Giving might be an exaggeration. She’s being… made available at my request.”

“You _demanded_ the _Normandy_?” Liara asked. “Garrus.”

“She’s Shepard’s ship.”

“There’s a feed I really wish I had been watching. To tell you the truth, I thought the usurpation of the _Normandy_ was going to come as a terrible surprise. I thought I was preparing you for the worst.” Liara shook her head. “Instead, this. Of course I will do whatever I can.”

“Good,” Garrus said, “because you won’t like what I want you to do.”

Liara sighed. “You want me to stay.”

“You must know comms are going to be better here than anywhere.”

Her smile was soft and sad. “Just like Shepard. She always did value me more for information than biotics. I understand. I don’t _like_ it, but I do understand.”

“I’m not staying,” Tali said sharply. “So don’t ask.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Garrus said. “EDI’s not going to fix herself.”

“And I have a shotgun.”

“And you have a shotgun.”

Tali placed one hand on a cocked hip. “And you’re a bosh’tet who needs to be reminded he’s not responsible for everything on his own.”

 _Shepard elbowed him in his unprotected side. “No, idiot,” she said, smirking, “you have to say it like_ this _. Vakarian. Garrus Vakarian. All around turian bad-boy and dispenser of justice in an unjust galaxy.”_

_“Shepard,” he groaned. “That’s ridiculous. I am not saying—”_

_“And you kill Reapers on the side.”_

_“And I kill Reapers on the side?”_

_She sighed, long-suffering, before pressing a kiss to his scarred mandible. “In the sexy voice, Garrus. In the sexy voice. And it’s not a question. It’s a statement of fact.”_

He blinked, pulling himself from the memory, and bent his head. Tali’s posture was still defiantly expectant. His heart pounded. “Fine,” he said, his subharmonics ever so slightly uneven. _Definitely not the sexy voice._ Shepard would be appalled. “I’m _occasionally_ a bosh’tet who needs reminding that he’s not responsible for everything on his own.”

“I’ll let you have that occasionally this time,” Tali said. “So what do we have?”

“Dog tags,” he said. “DNA. And a desperate need for information.”

Liara sat again, cracking her knuckles before bringing her fingers to her keyboard. “All right,” she said. “Then let’s see what we can find.”


	6. Clutch and Sink

Leaving Liara and Tali to comb through half-incomplete shipping manifests and broken feeds in a desperate attempt to find something, anything, that might point him in the right direction, Garrus made his way to the turian encampment. Here the stares were less obvious, perhaps, but the salutes were sharper, crisper. A young woman who could hardly be a year out of basic, if that, pointed him in the direction of the primarch’s headquarters.

Outside the closed door, Garrus hesitated a moment before knocking.

He couldn’t even have said why, exactly. Old ghosts of his father’s disappointment. Some dread that, in spite of the appearance of victory, he’d still managed to fail.

_We’re in this together._

And then he shook his head and raised his hand, because he’d come too far and lost too much to let doubt sink its damnable talons into him now.

His father looked tired and worn and old, but he smiled as soon as Garrus opened the door. Sitting beside him, Victus, at least a decade younger, looked twice as old, twice as tired, and though he nodded a greeting, he didn’t smile.

Damn if Garrus didn’t know that feeling.

“Primarch,” he said, saluting, and then remaining at attention. “Dad. I’m—it’s good to see you both well.”

“Well enough,” Victus said, and the hum of strain in his subharmonics spoke even more clearly of his exhaustion. Still, his gaze was clear and sharp as he gestured for Garrus to take the seat opposite him. “You look recovered. We heard some dire rumors in the wake of that final push.”

Garrus blinked once, and shifted his gaze sideways to his father, who merely gave a slow nod. He hadn’t even considered that they might’ve thought _he_ hadn’t made it. “I—they—Shepard got me medical attention in time.”

“Heard that too,” his father said. “Heard she called for an evac in the middle of a hot zone, with that big bastard Reaper looking on.”

“She did.”

“Another reason to be grateful to her.”

Victus sent Garrus a knowing look, but said nothing. He supposed they were both remembering that last little dark room in London, and goodbyes that tasted irrevocably of endings.

_Forgive the insubordination…_

Garrus inclined his head, not quite trusting himself to speak.

“I’m sorry, son.”

“As am I,” Victus said, with genuine grief modulating his subvocals. “Perhaps we use the words too often, but it was an honor to serve with her, even briefly, and we owe her a great deal. However—”

Garrus didn’t like the sound of that _however_. He definitely didn’t like the way Victus’ intense gaze turned piercing as it narrowed. “I had a strange message yesterday. Care to explain why an Alliance admiral is sending vaguely-worded demands—polite demands, but demands nonetheless—about one of my own, Vakarian?”

“He’s requested my help on a sensitive mission.”

Victus leaned forward, elbows propped up on the table, chin resting against his folded hands. He hardly blinked. “You are aware you are not employed by the human Systems Alliance?”

“Sir.”

“It made sense—tactical sense—to have you aboard the _Normandy_ when it was on the front lines of a desperate war. You were the Hierarchy’s eyes and ears, still answerable to Palaven Command in your role as advisor. I wasn’t going to argue with you.”

“And now, sir?” Garrus asked. He couldn’t help the edge in his voice, but if Victus noticed, he drew no attention to it. Garrus saw his father frown briefly, but the expression didn’t linger. He wasn’t even sure it was directed at him.

“Even without direct communication with Palaven Command—yet—you and I both know your status has changed within the Hierarchy.”

A sick little twist of dismay knotted his stomach. “Sir, I—”

“You have a responsibility to Palaven, Vakarian. To your people.”

_I don’t think I’m a very good turian, Shepard._

“And I’m… I am aware of it, Primarch.”

“Are you?” Victus asked pointedly. “If I was the best they had left on Menae, you can’t be more than a couple of steps away from my place. If that. Not after all this.” His mandibles twitched into a wry expression. “I’d like to see you better prepared than I was to take it on.”

Garrus swallowed hard and was glad he was already sitting. If he’d still been standing he might have walked out. Run, even. “Planning on going somewhere, sir?”

“No more than Fedorian was planning on having his shuttle shot out of the sky. Doesn’t change the facts. This is a complicated time. For all of us.”

Garrus shrugged and then laid his hands palms-down on the table. “I know—knew—Reapers, sir. And it appears they are no longer a threat. Surely others are better suited to… to a political role.”

The sound Victus made was short and sharp and not at all like laughter. “You’ll have to save that one for someone else, Vakarian. I didn’t want the politics either. I’m not going to buy it.”

_Wake up. You’re a politician whether you want to be or not._

“You’d be better off listening to the Vakarian sitting next to you, sir. He’s the only reason Primarch Fedorian ever listened to me in the first place, and he’s…” Garrus sent a faint smile his father’s way. “He was the face of C-Sec for a long time for a reason.”

Before Victus could speak, his dad said, “It’s important? This… sensitive mission?”

“I haven’t always seen eye to eye with the admiral,” Garrus admitted. “I… if I didn’t believe in what he was asking me to do, I’d’ve told him to throw himself out an airlock.”

Victus bowed his head and ran a hand along his fringe. “Are we talking days? Weeks? Months?”

“The less time it takes the better, Primarch,” Garrus said. “Though with things the way they are I can’t promise a swift resolution to this mission.”

Victus sighed. “I understand. Next time… Spirits, Vakarian. No one needs this kind of paperwork. Next time check with your commanding officer before committing yourself to something like this.”

He didn’t say what they were all thinking. He didn’t have to.

#

This time whoever’d broken into his room—and really, he needed to do something about the security if he was going to be here much longer—had announced their presence by leaving the door open a crack. Light shone out, painting a streak of dim gold across the muddy dark. Recognizing Zaeed’s laugh from within, he left his gun holstered.

He wasn’t sure if he was annoyed at the intrusion, or relieved by it.

_“Make yourself at home,” Shepard said, gesturing broadly, and though her lips were smiling he could see nerves in the creases at the corners of her eyes. “My ridiculously oversized quarters are your ridiculously oversized quarters.”_

_“Just don’t touch the fishtank,” he replied, his voice a flanging mimicry of her usual leave-that-cover-on-pain-of-death tone of warning, “and if I lay even the tip of one talon on your model ships you won’t be held responsible for your actions, and ‘so help me Garrus Vakarian if you leave your towels on the floor or your tools on the table or lose my hamster again—’”_

_“Shut up,” she said, but the uneasiness was gone. He still waited for her to make the first move; her mouth on his, her hand clutching the back of his neck, her arms the source of the gentle tug toward the bed._

_He obliged when she gave him a nudge backward, dropping to sit on the edge of the mattress. He let himself rest his hands on her waist as she straddled his thighs, her quick fingers making short work of clasps and seals, but he didn’t press, and he didn’t take, and he didn’t ask. He waited. For things to go right. For things to go wrong._

_And she noticed, of course, because she always noticed. “Don’t,” she whispered, low and urgent, her gaze unblinking and fixed on his. When he began to duck away, she brought her hands to either side of his face and shook her head. “We’re partners. We’re in this together or not at all. If that’s too—if you don’t want to—”_

_“Shut up,” he echoed before she could finish, slipping his hands from her waist to trace the curve of her back before pulling her close enough to feel her heartbeat against his chest and the soft warmth of her laugh. Then his were the quick fingers, and his were the straddling thighs, and hers was the head flung back against the sheets with eyes squeezed shut and light, panting breath—_

He was startled out of the memory by a shift in the shadows next to his little prefab unit and a bleep on his visor’s screen. A moment later, Alenko stepped into the light, eyes downcast and hands buried deep in the pockets of a plain jacket. It was, Garrus thought, maybe the first time he’d seen Alenko out of Alliance colors. He almost didn’t recognize him. If he’d slept at all since they landed back on Earth, there was no evidence of that rest on his drawn face. The skin around his eyes was so dark Garrus had to squint to make sure they weren’t actually bruises. His hair was a mess, like it had been rained on repeatedly and left to dry as it wished.

“Garrus,” Alenko said, voice gravelly rough. Garrus wasn’t sure if it was emotion or exhaustion. Maybe a little of both. “We need to—can we talk?”

After reaching out and pulling the door shut, Garrus crossed his arms and leaned against it, watching. The sounds from within were muffled now, almost unrecognizable. Alenko shifted from one foot to the other, and pushed his hands further into the jacket’s pockets.

Finally, Garrus said, “You look like crap.”

“I didn’t want to leave her.”

“You were following orders.” Each word was short and steady and devoid of emotion.

Alenko blinked up at him. “You know I was.”

Garrus tilted his head ever so slightly in a mild gesture of understanding. Not acceptance. Then he said, “I assume you’re here because you’ve talked to Hackett?”

Alenko shrugged and shook his head all at the same time. Then he swallowed audibly enough for Garrus to hear it standing a foot away. “I’m here because I owe you an apology.”

“You were following orders,” Garrus repeated. “Not ones I would have followed in your place, but you don’t owe me anything.”

“Not for that.” With a little defiance, Alenko raised his chin and said, “I’m an Alliance officer—”

“No,” Garrus interrupted so sharply Alenko’s eyes flashed to his, startled enough that the whites showed all around the dark irises. “You’re a Council Spectre. If _anyone_ had the authority to defy that order—”

“And if ‘defying that order’ had destroyed the _Normandy_?”

Garrus tucked his folded arms even closer to his chest to keep from jabbing a finger into Alenko’s sternum. “Who on that ship wouldn’t have died for her?”

Just for a moment, Alenko looked stung. Then the professional mask came down and he only looked blank. And a little broken. He said, “The apology is for the way I pushed after. For the memorial.” He raised one shaking hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “The—you have to remember, after the—after Alchera. All that misinformation. All that bureaucratic shit. And I was _there_. I knew what happened. I saw what became of the _Normandy_ ; I watched it burn. And then her face—you know, how they used her in recruitment ads. For months. I didn’t want to do that again. I didn’t want to pretend. That shockwave rocked the entire damned galaxy. We were nowhere nearby and it made us crash. What the hell was I supposed to think?”

Garrus watched him steadily for several long moments. Then he nodded. “The apology still isn’t necessary. It was your call to make. You made it.”

“You hold it against me.”

Garrus’ mandibles flexed before pulling tight to his cheeks. He said nothing. He had nothing _to_ say.

“Let me help.”

“You have talked to the admiral.”

“He says it’s your call.”

Garrus frowned. “Here’s my problem, Alenko. In every way that matters? You’ve got rank on me. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

_If I was the best they had left on Menae, you can’t be more than a couple of steps away from my place._

“I never pulled rank with Shepard.”

“Shepard’s Shepard. I’m not rebuilding her squad just because it was hers. It won’t be an Alliance mission. Alliance chain of command won’t matter. Your Spectre status can’t matter. I need people I can trust.”

Garrus didn’t think he was imagining the faint flare of biotic blue, but it was gone in a blink as if it had never been. 

“If you think there’s _anything_ I wouldn’t do to help her—”

“Anything except defy a bad order.”

Alenko scrubbed his hand through his hair almost violently before jamming it back into his pocket. “Shouldn’t that be a selling point? The bad orders will be yours, won’t they?”

In his head, Garrus heard Shepard laugh. _He’s got you there, big guy._

After a moment, Garrus said, “I’ll think about it.”

“Garrus—”

“Half an hour ago I wouldn’t have considered it.”

Slowly, very slowly, Alenko nodded.

Shortly after Alenko walked away into the dark, it began to rain again. Softly. Almost apologetically. For a moment, Garrus stood with his brow pressed to the door, one hand on the handle, letting the rain run down the back of his neck. _Why’d you let him back on the_ Normandy _?_ he asked Shepard silently. _After Horizon? After everything?_

She didn’t answer of course. She wouldn’t have, even if she were standing right in front of him.

 _I’m not questioning your judgment,_ he thought at her.

She’d have smiled at that. Sadly. And he’d have known that was _exactly_ what he was doing.

He just wouldn’t have known if he was right or wrong to do so.

Inside, Zaeed’s shout was followed by the sound of breaking glass.

Garrus sighed and pushed open the door. Zaeed and Jack were sitting opposite each other on the floor, cards in hand and a stack of poker chips between them. The broken glass was an empty bottle of something horrible-smelling that had obviously offended someone enough they’d seen fit to shatter it against the wall beside his desk. From the other side of the room.

“Hey, asshole,” Jack said by way of greeting. Garrus huffed a little breath of something not-quite-but-almost laughter. She hooked a thumb in Zaeed’s direction with one hand and threw another chip on the pile collected between them with the other. “Gramps here says you’re planning a fucking party. Turns out my kids are on vacation and I’ve got some time. Thought I’d crash.”

He didn’t thank her. She’d only have rejected the overture if he’d tried. Instead, he jerked his chin in the direction of the cards. “Right,” he said. “Deal me in. I’ll tell you what I know.”


	7. Waiting for a Knock

Six hands into a truly cutthroat, impromptu Skyllian Five tournament, Garrus’ omni-tool gave an insistent beep. Zaeed and Jack turned identical expressions of surprise his way. Garrus very nearly laughed. Any other time he would have. Human eyebrows. He never tired of human eyebrows. Both endlessly entertaining and endlessly informative, once one knew how to correctly interpret the dozens of variations of lift and twitch and lower.

“Shit,” Jack said, rearranging the cards in her hand as though altering their position might somehow pull her out of her losing spiral. “Someone’s got connections. Haven’t had a message on my ‘tool in weeks. Sanders sent a memo on actual paper the other day. Had one of the kids run it over. Like a fucking mailman.”

“Be using goddamned carrier pigeons if they don’t figure a way to get the buoys back up,” Zaeed muttered. “To say nothing of the relays.” Zaeed had a good hand; Garrus had human eyebrows to thank for that knowledge, too. Not quite prepared to concede defeat, Garrus merely tucked his cards into a pile and settled them in front of him. 

At least until he brought up his omni-tool’s interface and all thought of cards promptly vanished. A second ping followed on the heels of the first. Jack eyed the unattended deck like she was thinking about trying to lift an extra card while no one was looking.

For once? He didn’t give a damn if she did. She could cheat as much as she wanted. Hell, he’d throw extra on the pile, just to prove how grateful he was. Because the first message was from Liara and said only: _Expect intel from the admiral. It’s mine. I thought it might move things along if it went through proper channels. You’ll understand. L._

The second message was, of course, from Hackett. It was even briefer than Liara’s.

_We need to speak. Immediately._

“Well?” Jack asked.

Garrus pushed his cards away and rose to his feet. “Zaeed’s taking this hand; doesn’t matter what you just illegally picked up. And I’ve got to go see Hackett.”

One of Jack’s eyebrows reached for her hairline, while the other came down. Skeptical. That was the look. With a side of incredulous. And just a bit of irritation. “In the middle of the night?”

“No rest for the wicked,” Zaeed said, a touch too gleefully, as Jack showed her hand and he collected his winnings. She scowled at him. 

“Looks like we might have a lead that’ll get us out of here sooner rather than later,” Garrus explained as he clipped a pistol to his hip. “Be ready if you’re coming, Jack.”

Zaeed snorted. “And I’m bloody chopped liver?”

Garrus had no idea what that was, but the tone said nothing good. “I—hell, Zaeed, I can’t pay.”

The older man’s brows lowered heavily. Dangerously. He looked a little like he was plotting half a dozen ways to kill a turian with minimal fuss. Or maximum pain inflicted. “Who said anything about goddamned credits?”

Garrus’ mandibles fluttered in a brief smile. “You. Any time anyone asks you to do so much as look sideways at something that might smack of effort.”

Zaeed’s eyes narrowed. Jack leaned back and crossed her arms, her gaze tracking back and forth between them. She smiled a faintly bloodthirsty smile. A moment later, Zaeed made a gesture with one hand Garrus knew was considered rude, and followed it with a toothy grin. “Fuck you, Vakarian. You’re damned lucky I like you, or they’d be picking pieces of you out of these walls for weeks. Wouldn’t take your credits even if you had ‘em. I owe her one. Owe you at least half of something. And this goddamned planet’s getting me down.”

Garrus lingered a moment, hand on the door. “So I’d be doing you a favor, is what you’re saying?”

“Don’t push your fucking luck, kid.”

Garrus shook his head. “That’s more like it. Fine. Both of you be ready. And when you leave? Close the damned door behind you.”

Not that he cared, particularly. He had a feeling this room would be empty soon.

#

This time, Garrus found Hackett in his own room and not at headquarters. He approved of the admiral’s quarters, mostly because they were exactly the same as all the others he’d seen. Small. Grey. Efficient. Ugly. The ubiquitous dress uniform jacket was carefully folded over the back of his chair, and his ever-present hat perched on the desk next to a stack of datapads and a flickering terminal, leaving the man clad only in white t-shirt and dress trousers, hair ruffled the way Shepard’s had sometimes looked when it was shorter and she’d been pushing her hands through it over and over. Somehow Hackett still managed to look commanding. Garrus approved of that, too, though he’d never have admitted it.

Hackett nodded a greeting and closed the door as soon as Garrus stepped over the threshold. “I appreciate you coming right away,” he said, already headed over to the terminal.

“News?”

“Take a look.”

Garrus bent slightly, the better to peer at the small screen. Hackett hit a button and the darkness began to shift slightly. “Vid?”

“Watch.”

The light was terrible, and the camera had a crack in the lens straight down the middle. A moment later, the thin, bright beam of a flashlight cut through the dark, sweeping back and forth in a regular pattern. Looking for something, not just wandering.

The beam paused, jerking sharply. A moment later, the camera’s view was partially obscured by the bulk of a body. Garrus squinted, pushing his head closer though doing so revealed no additional details. The video was grainy and soundless. He watched for several more moments but nothing changed.

“Sir, what am we looking—”

“Watch!” Hackett snapped, with all the force of a command. Garrus had to resist the instinct to snap to attention. Unblinking, he watched.

The dark shape moved as another beam of light swept into the camera’s field of vision, approaching rapidly. Running, Garrus realized. Definitely not marking out patterns and making precise sweeps.

For a second—just a second—the second beam of light illuminated a dangling set of dog tags. The metal glinted, catching the light and throwing it back. Garrus would have sworn he saw the chest beneath that chain lift and fall. He couldn’t make out details, couldn’t see if it was armor painted in Shepard’s familiar pattern, familiar colors, but the dog tags he knew. He was certain. They were the same ones he carried.

And the breath. He was certain of that, too.

He released the one he’d been unconsciously holding. Beside him, Hackett did the same. They shared a glance. Neither of them smiled.

Another black figure moved in front of the camera. And when it left a few minutes later, taking its light with it, the body on the ground was gone.

“Where did this come from?” Garrus asked. “The footage?”

“Citadel feeds. We have a vast quantity of them recovered, though no personnel to spare for sifting through them. This was anonymous intel, but… from a reliable source. It’s not the first time I’ve had a message on that frequency; several leads were sent my way over that channel during wartime.”

Garrus inclined his head, but said nothing either to confirm or deny what knowledge he was privy to. “It seems to confirm the story we already believed, but how does it help point us in a direction now?”

“The feed was timestamped. The anonymous source was able to narrow down a list of ships leaving the area—leaving, at a time when most ships were desperate to _arrive_ and to stay within easy reach of Earth. Most of those ships are accounted for. Two or three are not.”

“And of those? How many are human?”

Hackett’s lips twitched so subtly Garrus couldn’t tell if he was holding in a smile or a frown. “Those figures could have been turian. Asari. A little small for krogan and a little bulky for salarian, but not out of the realm of possibility. I assume you have justification for the accusation in that question?”

Garrus lifted one shoulder in a faint shrug and gestured at the now-still vid. It was frozen on a panel of darkness, revealing nothing. “The grid they were using to sweep. I’ve seen Shepard mark the same pattern countless times when she didn’t want to risk missing anything in the dark. C-Sec uses a different pattern. So does the turian military. If they’re not Alliance, they had Alliance training.”

Though Hackett’s eyebrows remained stern, this time the lips definitely turned upward. “Good catch. One human ship. Kowloon class. _MSV Empire_. Had been grounded, unsold, for two years prior to the war, so we must assume it’s stolen. We have record of it leaving because it affected traffic; all available ships were attempting to evac Citadel survivors. The _Empire_ nearly caused an accident, and attempts to hail were ignored. It moved out of the way and departed, and the incident was forgotten.”

“Until your anonymous source went looking for incidents logged at the same time as this feed?”

“Indeed.”

“Damn.” Garrus nodded absently, pacing from one side of the room and back again, trying not to long for the vast quantity of information Liara could likely have pulled if all her sources and feeds were up and running. _There’s one for that,_ Shepard murmured in his head. _No use crying over spilled milk._ “They have weeks on us.”

“We already suspected that.”

Garrus swept a hand back over his fringe and shook his head. “If they were on something Kowloon class, they’ll need better facilities for medical care.”

Hackett nodded, already typing. “Luna’s too close. Mars is a good candidate, and probably where I’d start. Perhaps one of the outer colonies. I’ll send you what intel I have. The Reapers… the Reapers didn’t spare Sol. A lot of possible places are just craters now.”

“Like a needle in a haystack,” Garrus murmured under his breath. Shepard’s voice said, _hey, at least it’s a smaller haystack?_ Garrus ignored her. “And the _Normandy_?”

“Ready to leave tomorrow. I have a list of returning personnel. I assume you have people you’re adding to that list.”

“I do.”

“Is Alenko on it?”

Garrus stiffened. “He asked. I hadn’t decided.”

Hackett held his hands wide in a gesture of pacification. “I’m as familiar with his dossier as I am with yours, Vakarian. I understand you don’t see eye to eye. I even suspect I understand why. He’ll follow orders, though, and he’s got Spectre status to fall back on. Use it. If he’s aboard, the _Normandy_ ’s just a ship commandeered by a Spectre on Council business.”

Garrus bristled. “And if not, it’s been stolen by a hotheaded turian some say has ties to a merc band on Omega?”

“Not quite so dire,” Hackett said. “I think we could leave Archangel out of it. But it’ll save me having to think up a believable story.”

“And the Council?” Garrus asked, unable to keep a waver of bitterness from his subvocals. “They’re unwilling to grant me immunity—even temporary Spectre status—to go hunting for one of their own? For her of all people?”

Garrus was not entirely sure _what_ Admiral Hackett’s eyebrows were trying to tell him, but an instant later the man’s expression went carefully, unnaturally neutral.

“You didn’t ask?” Garrus pressed.

“There’s no one _to_ ask. Not right now.” Before Garrus could question this, or protest, Hackett lowered his voice and explained, “The Council didn’t make it off the Citadel when the Reapers took it. It’s not public knowledge.”

Garrus keened a low note of surprise. “Damn. Who does know?”

“Urdnot Wrex. Primarch Victus. Very few others. We’re… on damage control. It goes without saying this is confidential ten times over, Vakarian. We’ve got people stranded far, far from their homeworlds. We’ve got a power vacuum the likes of which the galaxy’s never known. We’re walking a damned razor blade here. Now is not the time to be, as you say, hotheaded.”

“I understand, sir.”

“So take Alenko. Udina made him a Spectre—put that bastard’s meddling to good use. Alenko’s presence lends you credibility and the right to secrecy, and in spite of your personal feelings, his history tells me he’s a damned fine soldier.” Hackett crossed his arms over his chest and gave Garrus an appraising look. “Only an idiot turns down an advantage when its offered. Are you an idiot?”

Garrus couldn’t stop his mandibles from flaring in surprise. Hackett responded with a smile. “I didn’t think so. The _Normandy_ will leave at evening shift change. Less of an audience. We don’t need people making news of this.”

Hackett’s shoulders hunched for a moment, and his right hand clenched into a loose fist. “We don’t know anything about these people, Vakarian. Their motives. Their plans. Instead of turning the Hero of the Citadel—the Hero of the damned Reaper War—over to authorities who might’ve helped her immediately, they took her. Find them.” The admiral lifted his eyes, clear and blue and sharp. Garrus didn’t need to decipher Hackett’s eyebrows to know he was angry. Ferociously angry. Devastatingly angry. “Bring her home. And if they’ve done anything to hurt her…”

“You have my word, sir.” There, at least, Garrus knew he would need no help, no guidance. He imagined anyone watching for signs on his face, in _his_ expression, wouldn’t require expressive human eyebrows to see what his intentions were.

Hackett extended his hand. Garrus accepted it. They shook once, firmly.

If one hair on Shepard’s head was harmed, his antics on Omega—Kron Harga, Har Urek, Thralog Mirki’it—would look like mercy killings.

Hackett smiled, small and tight, as though he knew exactly what Garrus was thinking.


	8. A New Start

Some missions wanted attention; some asked for waving flags and hopeful goodbyes and crowds cheering their heroes on. This one was not one of those. This was the kind of run the _Normandy_ ’d originally been built for—stealthy and swift—except even with the most obvious Alliance markings scraped off under the pretense of retrofit, thanks to the war she was still virtually the most recognizable ship in the galaxy. Next to the _Destiny Ascension_ , perhaps. 

The last thing they needed was too many eyes turned their way. The less that made it into the vids, the better; _commandeered for a Spectre mission_ would only buy so much time before nosy people started asking nosy questions, and they all knew it. Garrus hoped leaving Liara on damage control would keep their secret a little longer. Long enough. The _Normandy_ might have stealth systems out in the vastness of space, but if the wrong news source leaked the wrong material before they were out there, taking advantage of it, their prey might vanish before they could arrive to do what needed doing.

Garrus oversaw the proceedings from the sidelines, wearing a helmet to hide his too-recognizable features. It wasn’t much of a disguise, though at least with his— _Shepard’s_ —favorite set of armor busted beyond repair, he wasn’t wearing the silver and blue set the whole damned galaxy was used to seeing him wear. Not that dark blue and gold, painted with his old Archangel sigil, was subtle, for those who knew what to look for.

At least it didn’t have a hole blasted through the collar. Or a flaming Mako’s worth of damage.

Throughout the day, the crew boarded in surreptitious teams, two or three at a time, always when the area around the ship was quiet. As quiet as any place could be, on a planet teeming with too many stranded people, surrounded by multiple militaries still jumping at shadows and not quite believing their good luck. This time the _Normandy_ would be staffed by a mere skeleton crew of Alliance personnel no longer wearing Alliance colors. Volunteers, Hackett’s list told him. Every one of them. Garrus recognized all their names. Not that he expected anything else from Shepard’s people. His people now. They came in the guise of techs and engineers, carrying tools, speaking loudly enough of specs and repairs that anyone overhearing would assume, incorrectly, the _Normandy_ was grounded indefinitely.

For once, Garrus found himself glad of the rain. A steady downpour kept the _Normandy_ ’s usual crowd of gawkers and bystanders away. The sound of raindrops pattering on the ceramic of his helmet kept him from thinking thoughts of failure. He made a note of Zaeed’s arrival, and another when Jack arrived, wearing some kind of oversized hooded garment, with a bag slung over her back. Tali, he knew, was already within, holed up in engineering. With Shepard’s hamster.

He didn’t want to imagine Shepard’s face if he showed up without her pets. He had a feeling _disappointed_ would only be the beginning of it.

Wrex sent Grunt with a note that said, “Talked to Hackett. Take the kid. He’s not me, but he’ll do.”

Anyone but Wrex and Garrus would’ve said no. His mission. His squad. But he’d never been one to spite an advantage, and he already knew he and Grunt worked well together. When the krogan wasn’t waxing poetic about old massacres and the thousand and one ways to kill a turian his imprints had left behind, at least.

“You think you can follow orders?” Garrus asked. “You’re not head of Aralakh company on that ship.”

Grunt bounced on the balls of his feet and smashed his fists together. “Give me a chance to rip the faces off a deserving enemy and I’ll follow your lead, turian. Garrus.”

Within his helmet, Garrus’ mandibles twitched. “Not quite a yes, but I’ll take it. Mostly because you and I both know how pissed she’ll be if you go rogue.”

Krogan didn’t have conveniently expressive eyebrows like humans, but Garrus knew their expressions well enough to recognize Grunt’s. What he saw was enough to make him nod and wave absently in the _Normandy_ ’s direction. “Go on. Figure out a reason you need to get in there. Not a lot of krogan retrofit techs.”

Grunt’s exasperated, _idiot turian who do you think you’re talking to_ expression was much more familiar territory. Turning away, the krogan marched toward the ship and loudly—too loudly, really—said, “Just need to get that thing I forgot the last time I was here.”

Garrus sighed.

 _Do you suppose he’s imagining a shotgun?_ Shepard’s voice asked. _Or a toy dinosaur? Because I could go either way._

Garrus shook his head, and thought about laughing. _Shark_ , he replied. _To keep him safe in the shower._

_Do krogan feel the same way about swimming as turians?_

_Very. Funny. Shepard._

_I try. I try._

Finally, finally everyone he was expecting was aboard except Alenko. Even though the pretense of Alenko’s leadership was a necessary facet of the deception, it made Garrus’ plates itch. And he’d thought his team on Omega was disparate. He wondered how Shepard had done it. He wondered how he could possibly attempt to—even temporarily—take her place.

_Figure out who to praise and who to head-butt and you’ll do fine, big guy._

He scowled, waiting for Alenko.

The rain eased up long enough for the glow of a sunset to redden the horizon, and he heard the newcomer’s approach before he saw who it was. When he glanced down, only the faint blur he recognized as a tactical cloak and the confused readout of his visor told him he wasn’t alone.

“You did not outfit your wheelchair with a cloak,” he said aloud. A moment later the ripple on the edge of his vision vanished, replaced by his sister.

“Funny thing that,” she said. “Turns out people are genuinely disturbed by an apparently empty chair moving around on its own. It was either mod the chair or—”

“Stop sneaking around?”

Her mandibles fluttered as she breathed a laugh. “We both know that’s never going to happen. How else would I hear all the things no one wants me to hear?”

“How indeed,” Garrus mused. “Is that why you’re here? Reconnaissance? I know how you feel about goodbyes.”

She lifted her shoulders in the barest of shrugs. “Yeah, well, after the last time I wasn’t really going to take my chances.”

“I think last time was about as extreme as these things get, Sol. You know, with the imminent invasion of giant sentient machines and everything.”

Another slight lift and fall of her shoulders. “Doesn’t take an apocalypse, G. Just a bullet. I thought I’d never see you again. And I didn’t like it. So I’ve decided to temporarily lift my ban on goodbyes. Just this once.”

He dropped a hand to her shoulder and gave it a squeeze before bending to press his brow swiftly to hers. She closed her eyes and turned her face away. “I wish I could do more. Wish I could help.”

He didn’t think. Didn’t second-guess himself. He opened his mouth and the words, “So come,” fell out, followed by a resounding silence. In the distance, he heard Alenko’s voice raised in argument. With Hackett, Garrus knew, though they weren’t near enough for the admiral’s side of things to be heard.

Solana frowned, waving at her crippled leg. He retaliated by waving at his scarred face.

“Look,” Garrus said, dropping to crouch, his gaze unwaveringly on hers, “Doctor Chakwas knows what she’s doing. She’s been putting me back together for years. Let her take a look. She’s probably a damned sight better than whatever field medics have been poking at you.”

Solana stiffened and her mandibles flared, but she didn’t look away. “I’m not a charity case.”

“Who said you were? Look, the short version is whatever Shepard did fried the ship’s AI. I think maybe she can be brought back online. And you’re one of the best tech specialists I know. It’s not charity. I’d put you to work.”

Shock flitted across Solana’s features, and he didn’t think it was because of the compliment. “You mean VI, surely.”

“I mean AI. Her name’s EDI.” Garrus paused, struggling to find the right words, a little startled by the waver of emotion in his subharmonics. “She’s… she’s helped me out a few times. Hell, you tell her I said this and I’ll deny it, but she’s a friend. I’m not ready to give up on her.”

“…An artificially intelligent friend?” She smirked. “I always doubted your people skills, but this is something else.”

“Funny,” he drawled. “Keep going and I’ll leave you in this rainy hell of a city. See if I won’t.”

“Fine,” she said, raising her hands in surrender. “You’re the boss. I get it. But… modifying a visor or designing a new sniper scope is a far cry from fixing a broken AI, G.”

“You can’t do it?”

Her mandibles flicked. Not quite a smile—they were none of them much in the mood for smiling—but closer to it than he’d witnessed since he last saw her on Palaven. “You challenging me?”

He shrugged. “I mean, if it’s beyond your capabilities…”

“Since when does that work?”

“Since when doesn’t it?”

She snorted, but he knew he had her. He could already see the wheels turning, and if there was _one thing_ he knew about his sister, it was that she was relentless when she had a problem to mull over.

“Besides,” he added, “even if EDI’s beyond repair? Who better to illegally mod our gear? Spirits only know what we’re headed out to face, Solana, and I think my leisure hours are about to take a drastic cut.”

The cant of her head was faintly disgusted. “Honestly, G? You spend your leisure hours modding shit?”

“Ha,” he replied. “You don’t?”

The little peal of laughter was short and bright and completely out of place in the dim twilight and incessant rain. He loved her for it. It was, however, over too soon, replaced by concern. And reluctance.

“But Garrus—”

“Come,” he repeated. It wasn’t quite a plea, but it was close enough. “We can always get a message to Dad.” He jerked his head in the direction of the _Normandy_ ’s bulk. “These are good people, but they’re Shepard’s people. It’d be nice to have one of my own.”

As Alenko and Hackett drew nearer, he heard the admiral say, “Major Alenko, this is—”

“ _Spectre_ Alenko,” came the impatient interruption. Garrus had to hand it to Alenko: he sounded curt and dismissive and exactly the opposite of his usual self.

“Spectre Alenko,” Hackett amended. “This is highly irregular. The _Normandy_ ’s seen heavy action and—”

“And she’s the ship I need.”

“For?”

Alenko sighed. “Council business. Confidential Council business. Forgive me, Admiral, but I can’t say more.”

“Very well, Spectre, but I must go on record as opposed to this.”

“Noted, Admiral,” Alenko said.

“You sure he’s not the one in charge?” Solana asked.

“Funny,” Garrus said again. “It’s all part of the plan.”

“And you’re sure? About…”

More than anything else, the note of loss, of helplessness in her voice assured him he was making the right choice.

“Solana. You’ve got five minutes to wheel your invisible ass to that ship.”

She saluted, and before he could protest the gesture, she was safely under her cloak. Her chair left tracks in the mud. Luckily no one was around to notice.

While Alenko and Hackett continued to discuss the details of the _Normandy_ ’s conscription, Garrus made his way to the ship. He stood inside the door until Alenko strode in. As soon as they were alone, Alenko’s sharp Spectre persona fell away and he, too, saluted. “Sir,” he said. “I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

Garrus nodded. As Alenko turned away, however, he said, “Alenko? Kaidan. You were good out there. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

Kaidan’s lips turned up ever so faintly. “Shepard was a good teacher.”

“Yell loud enough and eventually someone will come over to see what all the fuss is about?”

Kaidan nodded. “With a side of: assume people will say no and don’t let them get a word in edgewise until you’ve already gotten your way.”

Garrus echoed Kaidan’s smile. “She does do that.”

He heard Kaidan inhale and hold his breath a moment too long before he said, “Thanks, Garrus. I… know you don’t want me here. I won’t let you down.”

On another salute, Kaidan strode away and Garrus turned toward the cockpit. Joker was, of course, already waiting, hands hovering over the navigation interface. His shoulders were still hunched under a burden of grief, and even without subvocals to betray it, Garrus could hear the sadness when Joker attempted to quip, “Guess if you’re the new boss I’m gonna have to lay off the stick-up-your-ass commentary, huh?”

“Not on my account,” Garrus remarked mildly. “Wouldn’t be the same without it.”

Ten seconds passed. Twenty. The silence was heavy. Finally, Joker said, “We’re going to find her, right?”

“We’re going to find her.”

“Good,” Joker said. “Because I’m going to be such an ass when you’re _not_ the boss anymore.”

“I look forward to it,” Garrus said. And, to his own surprise, meant it. “Take us out of here, Joker.”

“Aye, sir,” Joker said, as the _Normandy_ stirred to life all around them.


	9. Feeding a Little Life

Standing in the cockpit as the _Normandy_ broke Earth’s atmosphere, Shepard’s loss had never seemed more stark. 

Garrus was many things. Focused, yes. Driven, under the right circumstances. Loyal, when it was earned.

But he wasn’t her.

 _Second to none at beating yourself up, though_.

He wasn’t even sure if it was his own thought, or something Shepard might have said.

With the space around Earth so crowded with ships, Garrus watched as Joker wove in and out of traffic. When the wreckage of the Citadel appeared suddenly, surrounded by its cloud of ships on desperate rescue missions, he fought the urge to slam his fist onto the button that would’ve shuttered the windows. 

_It’s mostly a lot of running and shooting and usually somewhere in there a button needs pushing, but Shepard always hogs that part._

“You gonna loom there all day, boss?” Joker asked, his gaze fixed on the instruments in front of him. “Not that I don’t appreciate an audience, but…”

“You think they’ll rebuild it?”

One shoulder lifted in a slight shrug. “Up to me? I’d go with something new. Say goodbye to the giant, space-station-shaped Reaper trap people have been coming back to cycle after cycle after cycle. But who knows. Maybe those creepy Keeper things are already in there, sprucing things up, pasting bulkheads back in their places, planting flowers on the Presidium and scuttling over the countless dead—” The pilot shuddered, and if the ship veered a little too sharply and a little too quickly to the right, Garrus wasn’t going to mention it. “Shit. Even if she got rid of the threat for good, why court disaster?”

“Getting cynical in your old age, Joker?”

Joker snorted. “Right. _Getting._ You know what else I’m getting? Observant. Which is how I know you’re up here stalling. You afraid of the big bad crew?”

_I’m not Shepard._

Almost conversationally, Joker continued, “Not that you have to be as obsessive about it as she was—is—but you can’t go wrong touching base with them. You have time before we hit Mars.”

“Shepard and her rounds.”

“You’re on the right track,” Joker said, directing the _Normandy_ past a wounded turian dreadnought—they weren’t close enough for Garrus to determine which one—and out toward the endlessness of the stars. “She always starts with me. I’m her favorite, you know.”

“Right.”

“It’s all downhill from there, really. Through the CIC and up to her cabin, because she likes her pets only slightly less than she likes me and ED—me.” Joker swallowed hard enough for Garrus to hear it, and on his visor, the pilot’s heart rate increased slightly. When Joker spoke again, however, his voice remained calm, measured, slightly mocking, just like always. “Then it’s down to the hold, through Engineering, and finally onto the Crew Deck.”

“ _Very_ observant,” Garrus remarked wryly. “Next you’ll be telling me what she had for breakfast and the color of her socks.” 

“Oh, I _could_ ,” Joker mused. “But mostly because I refuse to believe she owns socks any color but black, and she evidently missed that whole ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ lecture they’re so fond of in grade school.” 

 _Given a never-ending supply, she’d eat hot, buttered toast until she burst,_ Garrus thought. _And most of her socks are every color of the spectrum_ except _black._

Aloud, he said nothing.

Oblivious, Joker lowered his voice mock-conspiratorially, adding a stage-whisper, “Between you and me, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t like you much. I mean, she _always_ saves you for last.”

Garrus’ mandibles twitched. “I thought you were going to save the smart-ass remarks for when I wasn’t the boss anymore.”

On a sigh, Joker said, “Old habits die hard.”

Garrus chuckled, a single weak _ha_.

“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” Joker said, turning his head just enough to raise his eyebrows pointedly, “she never hovers in the cockpit. Ever.”

A second _ha_ followed the first, and Garrus inclined his head. “Fine, Joker. You win.”

Joker’s eyebrows shot even higher, and he let out a little whoop. “Did you get that EDI? I wi—”

The pilot’s hands shook as they reached for the console, and Garrus backed away before Joker realized he’d witnessed the suddenly pale cheeks and the tears in his eyes.

The CIC was quiet. Sometimes Garrus found himself missing the bright lights of the Cerberus era. Less room for shadow. Here, now, he kept looking around, expecting to see the familiar faces in their familiar Alliance blue. A few people in civilian clothes paused their work and saluted as he passed. He greeted each by name, though he wasn’t as good as Shepard at remembering the host of tiny details that set them apart from one another. Shepard would have known if Hastings was the one who always made the good coffee in the mess, or if she was the one who knitted wooly hats in her spare time. Garrus couldn’t remember, so he only nodded and moved on.

Traynor’s post was empty; he didn’t look too long at either the CIC platform or Shepard’s terminal. He wondered if it’d been wiped yet. Wondered if it hadn’t.

In the elevator, he did not head immediately for Shepard’s—his now, he supposed—cabin. Instead, he went to the hold, and was surprised when, instead of finding it empty as he half-expected, he found Cortez fussing over their remaining Kodiak. The pilot was engrossed enough that Garrus was less than a couple of feet away before he turned. “Sir,” Cortez said, lips turning up in the briefest of smiles as he let the light of his omni-tool dim.

“I… admit I wasn’t expecting you to be here. You weren’t on my manifest.”

The smile widened enough to bring faint crinkles to the corners of Cortez’s eyes. “Oh, I’m _not_ here,” he said. “I’m on leave. Somewhere else.”

Garrus leaned back against the bulkhead and crossed his arms, and Cortez lifted his hands in a little helpless gesture. “The Admiral was concerned that anyone looking at a manifest—because they’re mostly public, you know—would see too many familiar names and start putting pieces together. The ground team—sure, some people might know Jack and Grunt and Zaeed once served with Shepard, but it wasn’t _recent_. If it was the same crew who just came back after a month stranded? The Admiral thought it might look fishy to prying eyes.”

“And there are always prying eyes.”

Cortez nodded solemnly. “So a few stayed back.” He hooked a thumb toward Vega’s station. “Especially the Alliance folks. I miss that big idiot already. Engineer Adams stayed publicly Earthside. Daniels and Donnelly, like me, cashed in some of that leave they had saved up.”

Garrus’ mandibles flicked into a little frown. “It’s a shame Traynor couldn’t—”

Cortez’s wink froze Garrus’ words mid-sentence. “Oh, Sam’s on leave, too. Elbows deep in the EDI problem.”

“Some vacation.”

Some of the mirth slid from Cortez’s face. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else, sir.”

From the hold, Garrus followed Shepard’s usual path, heading to Engineering.

Where, as soon as he stepped off the elevator, he heard someone shouting. Bellowing, really.

Garrus took a deep breath and jogged down the corridor to stop Grunt from killing someone.

The krogan had an audience. Jack stood against the far wall, arms crossed over her chest, head tilted. Garrus couldn’t quite read her expression. Zaaed, beside her, was an easier study. When Garrus strode through the open door, Zaeed turned toward him and grinned. “My money’s on the goddamned Prothean.”

Garrus’ groan was lost to Grunt’s renewed shouting.

“—This is my room! I don’t know what all these _puddles_ are doing in here, but—”

“Enough, krogan. This space is no longer yours. I have only just managed to make it my own. Even the memory of your time here is faded—”

Grunt smashed his fists together. Javik’s hands began to glow ever so faintly.

Garrus wanted to knock both their heads together, but wasn’t certain it would have much effect on either.

“Javik,” Garrus snapped, with all the sharp precision his years in the military had given him. “Stand down.”

“Yeah,” Grunt said. “I knew you’d see things my way—”

With Grunt, Garrus used his most scathing Bad Cop tone. “You’re as bad as he is. Half an hour out of orbit and you’re already picking fights? I should send you both to the damned brig.”

“Does the _Normandy_ have a brig?” Jack asked, just loudly enough for everyone to hear.

“Probably use that stinking hole you call a room, sweetheart.”

“Call me sweetheart again and they’ll never find your body, old man,” Jack replied. Not sweetly.

 _Spirits_ , Garrus thought. _I’m going to throw them_ all _out the airlock._

Pointing at the snickering audience, Garrus said, “You two. Out. Show’s over.” Jack’s shoulders stiffened, and for a moment he thought she was going to protest. Instead, she merely stalked out. Zaeed lingered a moment longer before flipping his hand up in a dismissive gesture and muttering, “I mean it. Fifty on the one with all the eyes.”

“Funny,” Garrus said.

When Zaeed was gone, he turned back to the original problem. “Grunt,” he said, “the hold downstairs is better. More room. Vega left some equipment you can use. Try not to break the damned Kodiak.”

“I don’t see why I should—”

“Did we or did we not discuss your willingness to follow orders?”

Grunt glowered.

_Figure out who to praise and who to head-butt and you’ll do fine, big guy._

_Damn,_ he thought. _Please let this not be a head-butt._

He let a hint—just a hint—of Good Cop Garrus seep in. “Remember who’s paying you in faces to rip off.”

Grunt’s glower deepened. 

“Hey, if it makes you feel better? The guns are down there. Cortez might even let you play with the stock of shotguns if you ask. Nicely. Shepard’s picked up some nice ones. Even some fancy Spectre Requisitions model, even though she never touched the thing.”

The glower shifted into a grin. “A Spectre shotgun?”

“Just sitting down there. Untouched.”

“Heh. I like that.”

_Thought you might._

When the door closed behind Grunt, Garrus turned to Javik. The Prothean was already back at his water-table, obsessively washing and rewashing his hands. Without looking at Garrus, he said, “The krogan is a loose cannon. I would—”

“I know what you’d do,” Garrus muttered. “But no one’s going out the airlock and the way I see it, you got what you wanted. You’re still in this room, aren’t you? A little gratitude never killed anyone.”

“That is not true,” Javik began, with that horrible tone that Garrus knew preceded an _in my cycle_ story. “In—”

“No,” Garrus said, snapping the word like a whip. Javik half-turned toward him, blinking, and it was as close to discomposed as he’d ever seen the Prothean. Made him feel a little like he deserved a medal. “How about you tell me what you’re doing here?”

Javik’s posture shifted just enough to indicate affront. _When isn’t he affronted?_ “The asari told me.”

“Liara sent you?”

“Sent,” Javik scoffed. “I am not commanded by a mere asari.”

“Of course not,” Garrus said, subharmonics thrumming with sarcasm. With a hefty dose of frustration. “Maybe you could give me a clue about your intentions, though? You’re not the only one who can work an airlock, Javik.”

“You are attempting to be amusing. I do not like it. It shows weakness.”

Garrus’ mandibles flicked tight to his cheeks. “You misunderstand me. I’m attempting not to lose my temper. This—this mission. It’s important. I can’t have anyone here I don’t trust. Or who won’t work for me.”

“For.” It wasn’t a question, but the single syllable still dripped with derision.

“My mission. My ship. My crew. No margin for error. No room for petty squabbles. _For_.”

Javik turned all the way to face him at this, watching him carefully for several breaths, his eyes unblinking. Then, very slowly, very deliberately, he dipped his head a fraction of an inch. “I approve, turian. I will… help.”

Never, Garrus thought, had the word _help_ sounded less positive. But it was the right word, and it was what he needed, and whatever his reasons, Javik had come without begging, without asking. Because Liara had told him what they planned. And though the Prothean was an enigma, he’d seemed as… attached to Shepard as he was to _anything_ other than revenge, and perhaps that counted for more than Javik would ever admit.

In a galaxy suddenly bereft of Reapers, perhaps it counted for everything.

Shepard would have known what to say. Garrus didn’t. A handshake seemed the wrong gesture, and he knew Javik would never approve of a hand to the shoulder or a companionable nudge. Instead, he nodded. “Try not to antagonize the crew,” Garrus said.

“They are different, these ones. Angrier.”

“Yeah, well, it’s Shepard,” Garrus said. “It’s personal.”

“Yes,” Javik replied. “Of this, too, I approve. I will prepare, turian, and be ready when I am needed.”

“Great.”

“Yes,” Javik repeated.

The _go_ was loud and clear, but Garrus lingered a moment just to reassure himself he wasn’t _actually_ being dismissed.

Garrus took a deep breath before stepping into Engineering, hoping he wouldn’t find Tali, Daniels, and Donnelly in some kind of engineer death match.

Though at this point, he was pretty sure nothing could surprise him.

In his head, Shepard snickered. _Oh, Garrus. We have one for that, too. It goes a little like ‘don’t tempt fate’ with a side of ‘now you’re asking for it.’_

At least, he thought as the door opened, no one was screaming.


	10. Stirring the Pattern

Much to Garrus’ relief, nothing in Engineering looked particularly amiss. Daniels and Donnelly huddled, whispering, in the corner, and except for the genuine look of dismay on Daniels’ face, that was normal. Tali wasn’t at her usual station, and Garrus found he missed Adams’ sturdy, reassuring presence immediately. Daniels noticed him first, pushing at Donnelly’s shoulder until the man turned and faced him.

“Are they done—” Daniels swallowed and shook her head, regaining her composure. She remained a little wild about the eyes and her voice was strained when she asked, “Is everything all right, sir?”

“Next time something like that happens, get me down here immediately,” he said, not without sympathy. “Though hopefully that’ll be the one and only incident.”

Daniels’ shoulders settled and Donnelly lifted his chin. Both of them had the air of people whose death sentence had been commuted at the last moment.

“Have you seen Tali?” Garrus asked.

Donnelly nodded. “Went up to return Shepa—the hamster. Then she was going to swing by the AI core.” He sent a slantwise glance down at his boards and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Should be back any minute, but otherwise—”

“I’ll find her,” Garrus said. “Thanks.” He took a few steps toward the exit and paused. When he turned, he found both of the engineers gazing back at him with solemn expressions and sad eyebrows. “It’s all right to say her name. Until we have proof otherwise, this is a rescue mission, understood?”

Daniels nodded first, and the entire landscape of her face changed when she smiled. Donnelly glanced at her, and though his smile wasn’t as wide, at least something of the despair was chased away.

“I’d like regular reports,” Garrus said. “We all know the _Normandy_ ’s not running at optimal levels right now, and hopefully nothing we ask of her will push her to her limit, but I want you two monitoring things closely. Last thing we need is to end up on another jungle planet with no warning.”

“We’re on it, sir,” Daniels said. “Come on, Ken. Don’t just stand there.”

“Hey. We were _both_ just—”

Businesslike, Daniels turned back to her station. “That array isn’t going to calibrate itself.”

As the door swished shut behind him, Garrus heard Donnelly mutter, “And maybe without _someone_ hovering constantly in the main battery screwing with things, we’ll be able to keep the power grid stable.”

“I think he heard you, Ken.”

“He did not—”

Garrus paused on the other side of the door, smiling a little. The smile faded when he thought about going to talk to Jack, or heading down the hall to see if Zaeed had settled in, so he went for the elevator instead.

Not, he found, that the Crew Deck was a great deal better. His heart stammered when the doors opened and the first thing he saw was the memorial wall. The space where they’d wanted him to put Shepard’s name was still empty, thank the Spirits, though he couldn’t stop himself from reaching up and touching the pads of his fingers to the cool metal. He took one steadying breath, then two, and let his hand drop back down to his side.

 _Now_ was not _then._ So he stepped away from the memorial wall and turned down the hall. It was too quiet, of course. He wanted to smell food cooking in the mess; wanted to see uniformed crew going about their business; wanted to hear laughter and friendly conversation. Instead, he heard only the low thrum of the ship, only noticeable because no other sound rose to cover it. The port lounge was empty. He lingered for a moment outside of Life Support, wondering if that same old mug still sat on that same old table, and then turned to the starboard observation lounge. Kaidan sat on one of the sofas with a cup of coffee at his elbow and a stack of datapads balanced on his lap.

“Sir,” Kaidan said, glancing up only briefly. A heavy line furrowed his brow.

Garrus gestured toward the datapads. “The Mars intel Hackett sent over?”

Kaidan nodded, but the crease between his brows only deepened. “Mmm. Three and a half million people require more than a few hospitals and med centers, but most are satellites of the major complex in Lowell City. That’s probably the best place to start. ‘Course, could be we find nothing but a smoking crater. Comms went down early there.” He lifted the datapad and shrugged. “Most of these numbers are pre-war.”

“Make a list of everything within shuttle distance of the Lowell City complex. Won’t hurt to be prepared.”

“Of course.” Kaidan closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Garrus was aware of the slight elevation in the other man’s heart rate, but said nothing. “Sir, I’d like to request—”

Before he could finish, Garrus said, “I was thinking you might lead one of the ground teams, Alenko.”

Kaidan blinked twice, rapidly, but betrayed no other outward sign of his surprise.

“We don’t have time to do this one three-person team at a time. No one’s sitting up here waiting. Not this time. I’ll take point with Jack and Zaeed. Send Tali one way with Grunt, and you the other with Javik. They’re both heavy hitters and should allow you two to scan areas as completely as possible.”

Kaidan nodded again, and though the lines etched into his brow didn’t completely smooth out, he certainly looked less troubled. “Understood. Are we anticipating resistance?”

Garrus shrugged. “We’re anticipating the worst because the reality is we know next to nothing. The Reaper forces appear to have been destroyed down to the last husk, so I don’t think we’re expecting banshees to come shrieking out of nowhere, but we have to assume the people who took Shepard aren’t going to want to give her up easily. I don’t want to _assume_ it’s Cerberus, but… hell. We’ve got nothing.”

Sighing, Kaidan leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, staring out at the stars. “I’ve never liked running blind.”

_That's the thing about getting old Shepard, the platitudes get just as old. Pretty soon blind hope is all we'll have left, and I hate being blind._

_And what, tell me_ whatis this _but the blindest of blind hope?_

“You won’t hear an argument from me on that score,” Garrus said. Whatever Kaidan heard in his voice—in his subharmonics, maybe—made him turn, tilting his head in silent question. “Every one of us has a history of leadership in some capacity. I trust we can go in smart even if we have to go in blind.”

Kaidan gave a low chuckle. “You ever hear the phrase ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’?” When Garrus shook his head, Kaidan explained, “Means I don’t envy you the task of getting so many people who’ve had the opportunity to run things their own way to fall in line and play nice.”

Garrus’ mandibles flicked. “You think it’s going to be a problem?”

“Honestly? I think it’s just another arena where you don’t want to go in blind.”

Running a hand over his fringe, Garrus sighed. “You’re not wrong, Alenko. Thanks. For the insight.”

He was almost at the door when Kaidan added, “For what it’s worth, Garrus? Handle things right and I think they will follow you. _We_ will. And not just because of her.”

By the time Garrus glanced back, Kaidan had already lifted his coffee mug and was taking a deep drink, tapping at the datapad with his free hand. “Noted,” Garrus said, trying to keep his voice neutral. “Send me that list when you’re finished with it.”

“Aye, sir.”

Garrus nearly skipped Liara’s office altogether, but when he drew near the door, his visor alerted him to life signs within. When he pressed the panel, the door slid wide to reveal his sister and Tali, decidedly not speaking to one another. The silence was icy, and so loud it made his head ache. Solana sat in front of one of Liara’s smaller terminals, while Tali hovered at her back.

“So,” Tali said pointedly, “you have a sister.”

Garrus sent a brief look his sister’s way, but though Solana had turned to look at him when the door opened, her expression was inscrutable, and it was much harder to read her body language with her confined to her chair. Tali was not much easier to read, though he didn’t think the lifted head and hands planted on her hips were precisely _positive_.

“And here she is,” Tali continued. “On the _Normandy._ ”

“Solana, Tali. Tali, Solana?” Garrus offered.

Tali cocked one hip, taking her posture in a decidedly unimpressed direction. Solana didn’t so much as twitch. “Garrus, she doesn’t know anything _about_ the _Normandy_. She’s—”

“Sitting right here, and perfectly capable of speaking for herself,” Solana retorted sharply. “If you would let me.”

Definitely unhappy then. Perfect. Even better than pissed off krogan, really.

“The _last thing_ I need is an amateur poking around,” Tali said, ignoring Solana completely. “The ship’s still limping—”

“Excuse me?” Solana snapped, twisting her chair around sharply. Tali didn’t physically take a step backward, but the little twitch of her helmet spoke volumes. Unpleasant volumes. “You don’t know the first thing about me, and you’ve barely let me get a word in edgewise to explain. I’m certainly not here to mess with your ship or—”

“Then why are you searching the ship’s logs for information about EDI?”

Solana’s mandibles gave the kind of irritated flare Garrus knew to be justifiably afraid of. “Why don’t you _ask_ instead of reading over my shoulder and making unimpressed noises?”

“Tali,” Garrus said, “she’s not here _because_ she’s my sister. She’s here because she’s damned good with tech, and—”

“And as the _Normandy_ ’s Chief Engineer I still don’t want her touching things she doesn’t understand.”

“Things I don’t understand,” Solana said, each word sharp and clipped. “Things _I_ don’t understand? You think I don’t understand how this ship works, quarian? You think every turian who had a hand in the original _Normandy_ ’s design was an aging old soldier? Go on. Ask me about the mechanics of the _Normandy_ ’s stealth system. Please.”

At this, Tali did take a step backward, and her hands finally dropped from her hips. “You worked on the SR1 design?”

Solana lifted her chin, a little defiant, a little proud. “I’ve always been very good at hiding things.”

Tali tilted her head at Garrus.

“She’s always been very good at hiding things,” Garrus admitted. “She’s responsible for Shepard’s tactical cloak upgrade.” He sent a querying look at Solana. “Didn’t know you worked on the SR1 project, though.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know you were running around the galaxy with a human Spectre, or off shooting up mercenaries on Omega. We don’t tell each other everything. One of my teachers—you remember Anniax Vatrus?—was on the project. Called me for a consult. I worked with him for months ironing out kinks in the damned IES.” She grimaced. “Obviously it was all classified, but that’s where the job offer came from. You know, that I turned down when I—”

“Went home to look after Mom,” Garrus finished. “Damn, Sol.”

“Damn is right.” She turned and flared her mandibles again, slightly less dangerously. “So while I appreciate how much you care about your ship? I’m sure as hell _not_ coming into this blind.”

Not for the first time, Garrus wondered what was happening behind Tali’s mask. When she spoke, however, the earlier irritation—though not completely gone—was under control. “I… shouldn’t have assumed. I’m sorry.”

Garrus half-expected some snide retort, but his sister only inclined her head and said, “Hell, no one likes strangers putting their hands all over their things, I get it. I want to help.” He didn’t miss the way Solana’s gaze dropped and slid swiftly over her amputated leg. “I want to be useful. I… I apologize, too. I should’ve introduced myself before—”

“Hacking my heavily encrypted systems and setting off a dozen alarms?”

Garrus glared at her. “Solana.”

She shrugged _almost_ apologetically. “Come on! Look at this _setup_. I couldn’t help myself.”

Tali let out a brief chuckle that seemed to take even her aback. “It’s a good thing Liara’s not here.”

“True,” Garrus said. “If you think _Tali’s_ possessive of her things…”

Solana held her hands aloft in surrender. “Best behavior from here on out.”

With a note of reluctance, Tali said, “If you’re _that_ good—”

“I am.”

Sighing a long-suffering sigh, Tali shook her head and said, “I certainly don’t doubt she’s related to you. _If_ you’re that good, you can help Sam. Samantha Traynor. She’s the comm specialist, but she also knows almost as much as there is to know about EDI.”

“Except how to bring her back online?”

Garrus wondered how well his sister understood quarian body language, because he knew for _damn sure_ Tali was inching steadily back to the kind of unimpressed that usually involved shotguns. “Unfortunately. We know EDI made backups of her backups, but she… the ways she could alter her own programming are almost impossible to understand. Trying to make sense of it is like navigating without any of your senses working.”

“I want to help,” Solana repeated.

Tali waved in the general direction of the medbay. “You’ll find Sam in the AI core.”

“Stop and talk to the doctor on your way through,” Garrus said. “That’s an order.”

Solana made a bit of a face, but left without complaining. When she was gone, Tali leveled a punch at Garrus’ arm. “Bosh’tet! You couldn’t have warned me?”

“Last minute decision.”

“I thought she was a stowaway!”

“The markings didn’t give it away?” He smirked. “Or are you… Tali! Tell me you’re not saying all turians look the same to you?”

She made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat and flung up her hands in a dismissive gesture. “Keelah! Save me from turians who think they’re funny.”

“No such luck.”

She groaned. “I’m going back to Engineering now. Please don’t bother me there until I forget how annoying you are.”

“That’s no way to talk to your commanding officer, Tali’Zorah.”

She didn’t say anything. She only reached out and squeezed his hand quickly before leaving. Liara’s darkened bank of screens gazed down at him reproachfully.

“Fine,” he said. “I’m going.”

The ride up to Shepard’s—his, now; _his_ —cabin had never seemed so long. Once he reached the top floor he lingered outside the door until he imagined EDI admonishing him the same way she’d done all those months ago when, hands shaking and heart racing, he’d stood in the very same spot wearing civvies and carrying a terrible bottle of wine.

_Officer Vakarian, the door will not open if you do not depress the panel. May I suggest using your hand?_

“Come on, EDI,” he said aloud. “Give me your worst joke. I promise I’ll laugh.”

He counted the silence for ten seconds, then twenty. After a minute, he slapped his palm on the door and strode into the room beyond. The fish swam their lazy circles. The hamster came scurrying out of his little house, squeaked, and ran inside again. He couldn’t place exactly why he felt so unsettled until he realized it was because no music was playing. For practically the first time in his experience. Without thinking, he strode across the room and flicked the music on. It was the same horrible shit Shepard always listened to, and he knew he could have changed it to Expel 10 or the _Fleet and Flotilla_ soundtrack without trouble, but he didn’t.

Slowly, feeling every one of his years with at least an extra decade thrown on for good measure, Garrus skirted the bed and sank down onto the sofa. Shepard’s wine glasses were gone. Of all the damned things. He stared at the empty spot on the table until his burning eyes needed to blink.

“Joker,” he said, “raise me when we’re half an hour out.”

“Aye, boss,” came the slightly tinny reply.

Garrus leaned back, closing his eyes, and pretended he could still smell Shepard’s scent even though he knew, he knew he couldn’t.


	11. Under This Red Rock

One benefit to Shepard’s three-person squads, Garrus realized as soon as they’d all crammed into the back of the Kodiak and lifted off, was physical space. He’d read the stats that said a Kodiak could hold fourteen, but he didn’t see how. Fourteen small humans, perhaps, stacked one on top of the other from floor to ceiling. Fourteen children, maybe. Grunt had to account for the space of at least half a dozen all on his own, if the amount of complaining Zaeed was doing was anything to go by.

“If you don’t get your goddamned elbow out of my goddamned face—”

“Your face is in the way of my elbow. These shuttles are built for pyjaks! When the krogan start building their own ships they’ll be—”

“Flying bloody deathtraps? You met a lot of goddamned krogan engineers in your day?”

Evidently not content to let an argument rage without offering his input, Javik began, “In my cycle—”

Tali was pushed so close to Garrus’ side that when she tilted her head up he could almost make out features behind the clouded purple glass. “You going to say anything?” she asked quietly.

Not, he suspected, that anyone could hear anything over the din of seven clanking, armored, complaining soldiers. She could probably have shouted and still gone unheard. Garrus cleared his throat. Javik was in the middle of explaining the superiority of Prothean engineering—nothing new—while Jack rolled her eyes. Grunt shifted away from Zaeed only to clock Javik in the mouth. Jack’s rolled eyes became a snicker.

“Heed your betters, krogan—”

“Maybe we could—” Garrus began. Tali sighed. Funny how even with the bickering, Garrus heard _that._

On Garrus’ other side, Kaidan swiftly shucked one of his gloves, brought a hand up to his mouth and let out a whistle so piercing the sudden silence afterward still seemed to ring with it. Garrus had to hand it to him: every head swiveled to face them. Even Javik’s mouth was a little agape. The Kodiak jerked to the side, but righted itself almost immediately.

From the cockpit, Cortez muttered, “A little warning next time?”

Leaning forward, Garrus rested his elbows on his knees and met every set of eyes now looking at him one at a time. “Right,” he said. “You have your squads. The _Normandy_ ’s not picking up the _Empire_ ’s signature in orbit, but right now we can’t entirely trust our scanners and the storms are keeping us from detecting anything groundside.”

“Then why are we here?” Grunt asked, gesturing broadly with one hand. Zaeed ducked away from it, but Garrus didn’t miss the way the merc’s hand twitched instinctively toward his weapon. 

“Mars has the nearest major medical facility. We know they left Earth, so chances are they came through here even if they didn’t stay.”

“So we’re… what? Looking for fingerprints?” Jack asked. “We gotta have more to go on. There’s a whole fucking _planet_ down there.”

Garrus nodded. “We’re looking for clues. Witnesses. Worst case, we’re looking for corpses. Anything out of the ordinary. Anything that might point us in a direction.”

Jack’s expression turned skeptical, her full lips pursed and her eyebrows pulled down. Her ponytail bobbed as she shook her head. “Anything out of the ordinary on a Reaper-blasted planet. You ever heard of looking for a—”

“Needle in a haystack?” Garrus supplied, a little bite in his subharmonics. One of Jack’s eyebrows jerked up again. “I never said it would be easy. You want to sit here and keep a seat warm on the Kodiak, go right ahead.” He paused, and when he blinked the backs of his eyelids showed the image of Shepard, blackened and broken, her dog tags catching the light, taking that breath. That one breath. He was hinging a whole lot of damned hope on a single inhale. “Look, even if they didn’t actually bring her _to_ the facility, the people who have her would’ve been looking for something a hell of a lot stronger than medi-gel. Even if they’re already gone, any bit of information we can use—or that Liara can use—will be better than the nothing we’ve got right now.”

“Understood,” Kaidan said. It was the kind of _understood_ that ended conversations—a soldier’s _understood_ —and everyone in the overcrowded cargo space shifted and shrugged and nodded, but no one argued. Or complained.

“ETA five minutes,” Cortez said. “Might be bumpy. We’ve got a storm.”

It was, indeed, bumpy. This time when Grunt’s elbow ended up dangerously close to Zaeed’s nose, no one raised their voice or snickered or rolled their eyes. A turbulent five minutes always seemed an eternity longer than a smooth five minutes, and by the time the Kodiak landed on the roof of the Lowell City medical complex, on the pad meant for incoming emergency vehicles, everyone who could look a little green did. Garrus swallowed his own unsettled stomach.

 _Oh, come on,_ Shepard mocked. _That was nothing! Remember the Mako? Hell, remember the Hammerhead? Now_ that _was some grade-A nausea. I could_ not _get the hang of that thing._

He’d have smiled if she’d actually been there to see it. _Thought you were immune._

_Hell, no. I just always did my vomiting in private. Knew I’d never hear the end of it otherwise. Look at the shit you lot gave Wrex after that time he couldn’t stop himself._

_To be fair, it was hilarious._

_To be fair, I think I was the one who retold that story the most often._ He imagined her smirking as she said it. _Such a good one. Never knew a krogan could look that pathetic._

He missed her smirk.

Before releasing the hatch, Cortez turned and spoke over his shoulder. “It’s bleak out there. Can’t get a reading even fifty feet out. Hopefully you lot’ll have better luck with your short-range communications and suit-board sensors. Might want a plan B, though, in case I can’t get through to you.”

“Three hours,” Garrus said. “Keep an eye on your time. Everyone meets back here in three. No exceptions. Should be ample time to scour the facility.”

A round of nods followed, before helmets were firmly fastened and weapons were checked and double-checked. Garrus opened the door and the whirling wall of red sand immediately blinded him. His visor tried valiantly to give him stats to work with, but even it could only do so much. He was pretty sure an entire squadron of enemy soldiers could’ve been standing a dozen feet away and he’d have missed them. Of course, he had to hope they’d have been just as blind.

“Right,” he said, the tinny sound of his own voice echoing across the comms. “Alenko. Javik. Take the west wing. Should be a hatch, if the schematics Hackett provided are accurate. Tali. You and Grunt—”

“Go east,” she replied. He could hear the smile in the tone of her voice, even as she reached behind and released her shotgun. “Back in three.”

He didn’t know exactly what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t the reality that faced him.

Garrus waited until both teams had vanished off his radar before setting out with Jack and Zaeed. Instead of his usual position at Shepard’s six, rifle in hand, he took point with his assault rifle and Jack at his flank. Zaeed followed, and Garrus hoped the merc’s Mantis was modded with an enhanced scope half as good as his own.

The blowing sand gusted, scraping against the sides of Garrus’ helmet, dozens of tiny pings just loud enough to annoy. He turned his face away from the worst of it and followed the directions on the building map. After descending three ladders and crossing a narrow catwalk with his heart in his throat and his hand firmly on the railing, they hit the ground, and the hospital’s main entrance.

It was too quiet. Even with the storm. Even after the Reapers. Drifts of red sand piled against the far wall almost up to the level of the windows, and the only markings in the silt were ones left by the wind itself, little whirls and eddies, eerily artistic. He told himself footprints could have vanished in the wind, but didn’t really believe it. 

This was the unmistakable quiet of dead things.

He could have gestured Jack and Zaeed forward—the wind down here wasn’t creating the same blinding screen of dust—but he found he wanted the sound of voices. “Going in,” he said.

“Feels fucked up,” Jack replied.

“Goddamned fucked up,” Zaeed echoed.

“Eyes sharp,” Garrus said, to keep from agreeing with them.

Inside it was worse. Even through the filters of his helmet, he could smell how wrong the place was. Hospitals were clean and sharp, all antiseptic and antibacterial soap with the faint undercurrent of illness. This one smelled of sand. Dry and hot, and under it all the faint fetid odor of death. His nostrils twitched and even trapped within tight confines his mandibles gave a little flare of dismay.

The lights above them flickered and cracked, like whatever backup of a backup generator was keeping them on at all was about to finally give up. They moved slowly through the lobby and into the reception area, but the silence and emptiness and uneasy near-darkness remained. A child’s stuffed toy lay beneath one of the chairs, next to a stack of old books with once-colorful covers.

“Was this Reapers?” Zaeed asked, his voice—even muffled by transmission over the comms—far too loud.

Garrus tore his gaze away from the books and the abandoned toy, shaking his head and gesturing for them to follow. This wasn’t like Earth or Palaven. This was quieter. Sadder. This was Horizon. Both times. Stolen lives. Hopeless ones. Just as the silence outside had asked for voices to fill it, in here the quiet begged to remain undisturbed. They moved like ghosts through the hallways, the sound of their boots too loud against the tile. After two empty rooms, behind the third door they found bodies laid out in neat rows.

“It’s a hospital,” Zaeed muttered. “Why not take ‘em to the goddamned morgue?”

“Maybe the morgue was full,” Garrus replied. Kaidan’s route went that way. Garrus did not envy him. Beside him, Jack shivered and then straightened her shoulders even more defiantly.

They found more dead in more rooms. He was no medical examiner, but he’d seen a lot of bodies in his time and these weren’t new ones. Even _if_ Shepard’s captors had come through here, these corpses weren’t their doing. If he had to guess, he’d put most of them dead months. The pattern of what they discovered told a story he didn’t want to admit could be truth: these people were dead because they’d been forgotten. The whole damned planet had been left to die when the Reapers came. Maybe some had been collected, turned to husks or paste or worse. But when the Reapers pulled out, they left survivors, and those survivors had no one. Nothing. Dwindling supplies and no help in sight, while their government clashed and their military dealt with bigger, more immediate threats on bigger, more immediate planets.

It was the damned _Valiant_ , but instead of watching Shepard—and only Shepard—slowly starve, he was seeing the aftermath of a whole planet’s slow death.

They’d come here last, he thought. To the hospital. The big, safe building at the center of the city, relatively untouched by Reaper fire, Reaper forces. They’d held out here for weeks, for months, waiting for someone to find them.

And no one had come.

He’d never wanted something to shoot so badly. A pyjak. A rabid varren. Anything. This? This wasn’t a soldier’s work. It wasn’t even a cop’s work. Mars was a planet that needed only benedictions now, to lay its many lost souls to rest.

“This is worse than fucking Pragia,” Jack muttered, and Garrus couldn’t help but silently agree with her.

#

Agitated by their failure to find anything of value on the planet’s surface, the last thing Garrus wanted as he opened the Kodiak door and strode out into the shuttle bay was to find Traynor nervously shifting from foot to foot. Relief washed over her features as soon as his eyes met hers, but she waited until the disheartened squad had cleared out before speaking. Private, then. “The admiral’s on vidcom, sir. He’s been, uh, waiting for some time.”

“How much is some?”

Traynor glanced down at her datapad and winced. “Two hours. He said he’d wait. As long as it took.”

“Damn. He tell you anything?”

She was shaking her head even before he finished asking the question, not that he’d expected anything else. He rested a hand briefly on her shoulder and was relieved when her distress seemed to ebb. A little. At least he couldn’t see the entirety of the whites around her irises anymore. “Look,” he said, “it’d be a big help if you could make sure everyone— _everyone_ —gets something to eat and spends a little time… doing something—anything—that takes their minds off what we saw down there.”

“That bad?”

For a moment, he debated telling her a little lie to soothe the reality of red sand scouring white bones clean, of thin skeletons curled in corners of empty rooms. “Worse,” he said. “Made Earth look like a vacation resort. I… couldn’t tell you how much was the Reapers and how much was just…”

He saw understanding settle on her features. “The cost of war?”

“The cost of war,” he agreed. “That damned ruthless calculus.”

He took a few steps toward the elevator before Traynor’s quiet voice stopped him. “Sir? Garrus? After the call… make sure _you_ get something to eat, won’t you? And spend a little time doing something to take your mind off what you saw down there?” She paused. “I’m sure the battery could use a few moments of your time.”

His mandibles flared in a weak smile. “Aye, aye, Specialist. Aye, aye.”

As soon as the elevator doors closed, leaving him alone, he dragged his hands over the dust-stained blue of his armor. Red sand. White bone. Skeletons. Ghosts.

And nothing of Shepard. Nothing.


	12. In Our Empty Rooms

Garrus was so accustomed to seeing Privates Westmoreland and Campbell guarding the door between the CIC and the War Room that he caught himself mid-nod of greeting before he realized the room was empty. The scanner stood dark, and he shivered and ducked his head slightly as he passed under the arch. It should have been a positive thing: definitive proof the war was over, but instead he felt uneasy.

If the empty guard-post was eerie, it was nothing to the War Room itself. He stood on the threshold, gazing at the empty, unmanned banks of terminals, all their blank screens like staring eyes. Stepping down into the center of the room, he ran one hand along the curve of the darkened central terminal. He wondered how many of the precious war assets Shepard had fought and bled and pleaded for were now smoldering wreckage like the hard-won Crucible. 

Or corpses. Like Mars.

Setting his shoulders, he strode into the QEC room without looking backward. He pressed the button next to the blinking light, called the admiral’s name, and stood at polite attention to wait for him. It took a few moments—presumably the admiral was nearby, but hadn’t actually been waiting near the Alliance’s quantum entanglement communicator—before the older man’s image formed, glowing and vaguely staticky.

“Vakarian,” he said.

“Sir,” Garrus replied at once. “I’m afraid the news out of Mars isn’t good.”

“No sign of Shepard?”

“No sign of anyone, Admiral. I… I’m sorry.”

The limitations of the QEC meant Garrus couldn’t perceive if Hackett went pale, but the admiral’s shoulders sank and he shook his head. “Such losses were to be expected. Of course.”

“Expectation and confirmation are different.”

“Indeed.” Hackett lifted his chin and set his jaw and the moment of grief was over almost as soon as it had begun. “That matter is, I’m afraid, secondary. I had hoped, of course, your findings might make my news irrelevant.”

“Sir?”

“We’ve had a demand. Ransom. A million credits.”

Garrus’ mandibles tucked tight to his cheeks, though he didn’t give any other outward sign of his distress. C-Sec didn’t make deals with kidnappers. Neither did the turian military. If Hackett’s grim expression was any indicator, humanity had similar reservations.

Garrus would have paid the sum twice over. A dozen times. A hundred.

Even the monotone light and the wavering glow of the communicator couldn’t mask the piercing sharpness of the admiral’s gaze. “The funds are a non-issue. If we trusted them to keep their end of the bargain we’d pay anything. You know that.”

Garrus tilted his head a little, trying to parse the phrase for conciliation. Hackett’s expression gave nothing away; if the man was merely trying to placate him, he was doing a damned fine job.

Then again, Garrus was both cynical and practical enough to have no doubt the Alliance wanted their hero back alive for a whole host of their own reasons.

“It’s all a little convenient, isn’t it?” Garrus asked. “The _Normandy_ ’s barely out of orbit and a ransom demand comes in?”

“You’re certainly not the only one who thinks so.”

“You checked with, uh, our resident source of information?”

Even broken up by the static of their connection, Garrus saw the faint twist of Hackett’s lips. “She’s the one who deduced coordinates based on their request and some algorithm I’m too much of an old soldier to explain in anything resembling detail. It did sound very… thorough.”

“She speaks quickly when she’s excited,” Garrus agreed, letting himself feel the faintest sliver of hope. If Liara thought—but no. He’d hoped too much before Mars. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. “I have trouble understanding it, and I have experience. And a tech background.”

Hackett looked as though he wanted to pace, but instead merely linked his hands behind his back. “We’re sending coordinates she came up with. They were accurate as of a couple of hours ago. More than that, they match the rendezvous point they want to set.”

“Sloppy,” Garrus said.

“Or a trap.”

“And you want us to spring it?”

“In a manner of speaking. We’re buying you time. The coordinates are about three days out from your current location. I’ll make a deal, try and set up an exchange. Tell them I’m sending a team; hell, I’ll even send out another ship, if that’s what I need to do to convince them.”

Garrus nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “And while you’re stalling, we slip in undetected.”

“Even so.” Hackett reached up and stroked his chin, his brow furrowing in thought. “Still, it is best to assume—”

“They’ll be ready and waiting?” Garrus interjected. “Admiral, if there’s one thing you can count on me to do, it’s plan for the worst case scenario.”

Even as he said it, though, he thought of the abandoned child’s toy beneath the chair in the hospital reception room. He thought of the bodies in their various states of inanition, various states of decay. He tried not to wonder what the most desperate had done. He tried not to think of the ones whose fatal wounds had been hopelessly self-inflicted. 

He hadn’t been prepared for that.

“Did you know people down there?” Garrus asked, aware it was probably impertinent and certainly wasn’t his business. Still, he couldn’t stop the words.

Hackett was arrested by the strange, frozen stillness of the shocked, of the wounded. This time the sorrow didn’t immediately vanish, and when he spoke, softly, each word sank heavy as a stone into the silence. “I know people everywhere, Vakarian. Knew.” Garrus watched the man slowly rebuild his armor, piece by piece, word by word. “The time for mourning, for honoring the fallen—civilian and military alike—will come. First we must look to the living.”

Garrus straightened to attention. “Understood, sir.”

“Yes. I thought you would.” Hackett lifted his arm and Garrus saw the shadowy outline of his omni-tool flicker to life. “Patching through the coordinates now on your private frequency. I don’t have to tell you this is our best chance. Hackett out.” 

Garrus didn’t linger in the darkness when the call ended.

The admiral was right, after all. They had the living to look to.

#

To be fair, after Garrus visited the cockpit to deliver the coordinates—“It’s okay, boss, you don’t actually have to stand there and watch me press the buttons.”—he did _consider_ following his own orders and heading down to the crew deck. He needed to speak with Dr. Chakwas. He ought to check in on the ground team, make sure they’d all taken his insistence on downtime seriously. He knew he should find out what trouble Solana had gotten herself into during their absence. Hell, he even considered Traynor’s suggestion of spending some time tweaking the Thanix’s firing algorithms just for fun (and possibly to irritate Ken Donnelly). In the end, however, when the elevator doors slid shut, he found himself headed for the top floor and the quarters he still couldn’t entirely think of as his own.

At least one of his problems resolved itself when he found his sister sitting outside his cabin door, datapad on her lap and omni-tool interface flashing as she took rapid notes. She glanced up at him and didn’t quite smile. “This is me respecting your personal space,” she said. “Aren’t you proud?”

“You know, most people don’t require a commendation for adhering to the basic rules of civilized society.”

“I’m sorry, how many times did you break into my room when we were kids?”

The chuckle escaped before he could swallow it. “You and I both know I was only ever trying to recover whatever thing of mine you’d most recently stolen.”

“Including _my_ diary?”

Garrus shrugged. “You went too far when you took that rifle scope I’d saved _months_ for.”

“Petty vengeance.”

“Justice,” he retorted. “And excellent fodder for blackmail.”

“I don’t think the words _justice_ and _blackmail_ are supposed to be used in the same sentence.”

He tapped her lightly on the head with one knuckle. “Fine. You win. It was revenge. Pure and sweet. I regret nothing.”

“I worry about you, G.”

_She’s not the only one._

_I’m fine, Shepard._

_You and I both know that’s my line, big guy. No way it’s going to fly with me._

He realized he’d been lost in thought—and silent—too long when Solana reached out and touched his hand. Garrus didn’t quite startle, but he pulled back a bit too quickly, a bit too suddenly. Her expression was fond and weary and said she saw entirely too much. “Do you want company?”

Garrus shook his head.

Solana, however, leaned forward and wrapped her fingers around his, giving them a little squeeze. This time he didn’t pull away. “Let me rephrase,” she said. “Do you _need_ company?”

Without answering, he pounded the panel of the door a little harder than strictly necessary and gestured for her to precede him. 

A few moments later, she let out a low sound of surprise. “Well. It’s a shame it’s so damned _small_. Wherever do you keep all your things?”

Garrus snorted. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? You could cram a dozen turians in here.”

“ _Two_ dozen quarians. Maybe three.”

Garrus gave her a look, and she lifted her shoulders in a guileless shrug. “I only meant space on the Flotilla’s at a premium, from what I hear. Though now they have their homeworld back…” Solana moved forward until her chair balanced on the top of the stairs down to the main living area. Garrus wondered what she saw. The bed that looked unslept in? The half-finished chess game he’d been playing against the voice in his head? The scrap of black cloth much too small and wrongly-shaped to belong to him flung over the back of the couch, next to the pillow that _did_ look slept on? “You know it was the krogan who helped us escape on Palaven, in the end?” She lifted a hand and laid it against the glass of the fish tank. One of the eels came over to inspect it. “I was so… I was almost gone. I can say that now. I was dying. My leg was beyond messed up, and then there were these krogan. I thought I _had_ died. I didn’t understand they were there to help. One of them picked me up and I started screaming. Not because it hurt—though it did—but because I was imagining those nightmare stories we heard as kids about krogan literally tearing the plates off their turian prey and I just… they had to knock me out to get me to stop. They got us to the transport. Without them…” She took a deep breath and turned to face him again. He wanted to scream a little, seeing the look on her face. It was too much like pity. “When I woke up, Dad told me about the krogan-turian alliance. Communications were so bad we hadn’t heard. Hell. I probably wasn’t the only turian who thought retribution for that old crime had finally come.” Solana shook her head, her gaze sweeping the room once more. “And _she_ did that. Made it happen. Somehow healed that old wound.”

“Bandaged it, certainly. Time will tell.”

“The way the primarch talks about her… I’ve never heard respect like that.”

“She usually gets her way when she’s determined. She’s… Shepard.” Garrus didn’t bother attempting to keep the admiration from his tone. His sister’s expression turned uneasy, her eyes gazing over his shoulder to fix on the bank of ship models as her fingers pulled at the hem of her tunic. “You going to tell me why you were really lingering outside my door, Sol?”

She sighed, folding her fidgeting hands in her lap. “Honestly? I was wondering if I could get, uh, an introduction at some point. To the rest of the crew, I mean. They don’t know me, and… I’d rather not repeat my misstep with your quarian friend.”

“Her name’s Tali.”

“I think her name is still Ma’am as far as I’m concerned. And for the foreseeable future.”

“You can’t be surprised, Sol. You hacked her ship. Without asking permission.”

“Hacking’s not usually a permission-asking sort of activity.” She grimaced. “Fine. I take your point just like I took hers.” She lifted her hands. “Above-board only.”

“Unless you’re sure you won’t get caught.”

Solana’s mandibles flared wide in genuine surprise. “ _Garrus._ ”

“They don’t know you, but _I_ do.” Her affront disappeared behind a grin. “All right. Introductions, I suppose, are definitely in order. Are you still decent with cards in your hand?”

“I had a good teacher, didn’t I?”

Garrus touched his fingers to her shoulder and she leaned her cheek briefly against his hand. “Let them win once in a while or they’ll never warm to you.”

She snorted. “What part of ‘I had a good teacher’ didn’t you understand, G? Sometimes you play for credits—”

“And sometimes you play for friendship. Yeah, yeah. I’m damned clever.”

“And so modest,” she griped, but her smile didn’t fade.

He sighed. “I think you know me too well, Sol. You came up here because you knew I was going to retreat—”

“—And brood,” she interjected. “Retreat and brood.”

“And _think_ ,” he contradicted. 

“No. Definitely brood. Probably with a side of worrying and fretting about things you can’t possibly change.”

He glowered instead of admitting she might— _might_ —have grasped a little of the truth. “Just so you know? I am _not_ letting you win. Not once.”

She smirked. “I don’t need your pity. Or your handouts. I’ve had nothing to do for weeks but play cutthroat Skyllian Five tournaments with bored refugees. I think I can take you.”


	13. The Expected Guest

Garrus crossed his arms over his chest, gazing out the cockpit window at the hulking freighter. It matched the _Empire_ ’s signature and was located exactly where Liara’d said it would be, but beyond that, it was a mystery. He didn’t like it. If anything less than Shepard’s life had been hanging on the mission’s success, he’d have called it off. Too many variables out of his control. Too many avenues for disaster to strike. Something felt off. Something felt _wrong_. He just wasn’t sure what, exactly, it was.

“Wish I could give you more, boss,” Joker said, frustration giving his voice a sharp edge. Garrus was starting to forget what the pilot’s voice sounded like without that patina of bitterness. Joker’s fingers moved over the interface fruitlessly before spasming into a brief fist. Garrus made a note to bring up his concerns later, with Chakwas. Anger could prove potent fuel, but not if it led to suicidal risks or sloppy mistakes. Garrus knew that better than anyone, and he was starting to see signs of fraying in Joker he simply couldn’t ignore. “Maybe if—but it doesn’t matter. They’ve got everything so jammed they might as well be running as silent as we are. Could be a ghost ship. Could be packed full of men with guns like sardines in a can. It’s a big can. It could hold a lot of damned sardines.”

Garrus tilted his head but didn’t ask; the meaning was clear enough. “That’s why I’m bringing Jack,” he explained. “You ever seen her rip through a squad at close quarters?”

Joker snorted. “You know I haven’t. And damn, you know I don’t want to. She’s scary enough when she’s not glowing. Or on a homicidal rampage.”

“I heard that, asshole,” Jack called from just outside the airlock.

Joker turned and lifted an eyebrow. “You sure about this boss?”

“Alenko’s filling the role of diplomat,” Garrus said. “Jack’s the hopefully unnecessary weapon of mass destruction.”

Jack laughed. “Yeah. Point me, shoot, and watch shit burn.”

“I said _scary enough_ ,” Joker called out. “You don’t have to convince me.”

“Commence boarding procedure, Joker,” Garrus said. “You know the plan. If we’re not back in an hour, Tali, Javik and Zaeed come after us.”

“Sure you don’t want them in there first? I mean, now _there’s_ a pair of diplomats. Javik can tell them how inferior they are while Zaeed smashes their faces in with the butt of his rifle.”

Kaidan, leaning against the bulkhead, rolled his eyes a little. “I think we’re hoping no faces need smashing.”

Joker’s snicker sounded even sharper than his voice, but Garrus thought its cut was mostly internal. “Right. Maybe _you’re_ hoping that, but I doubt everyone else is on that page. Or even in that book. Something tells me this isn’t going to be solved with handshakes.”

“Joker,” Garrus repeated, stern. The edge in his subharmonics wasn’t frustration. It wasn’t even anger. It was the kind of command that dared dissent and promised punishment. He didn’t have to raise his voice; even without subharmonics of his own, he knew Joker understood him perfectly well. “Commence boarding procedure. Now.”

The pilot’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment Garrus thought he was going to protest. He didn’t. His attention snapped back to his controls. Garrus watched him work a moment longer before turning back to his waiting squad. Kaidan and Jack were already suited up; he sent them on ahead with a wave. Grunt remained behind, watching Garrus’ movements.

“Kill anything that comes through this door without knocking first,” Garrus said. “No questions asked. And if none of us come back—”

“I know,” Grunt rumbled. “Last line of defense.” Grunt lifted his shoulders in a shrug and he glowered. “I heard you the first time. I don’t like it, but I’ll do it.”

Kaidan, already-helmeted, handed Garrus his helmet as soon as the door slid shut behind him. Garrus nodded his gratitude. He didn’t like what helmets did to his sight lines, but they had no idea what they’d find on the ship; he didn’t want to take the risk that life support could be non-functional. 

“You know Joker’s losing his shit, right?” Jack murmured, slipping into her own mask and then rolling her neck to get used to the change in weight. One of her vertebrae gave an audible crack and she smiled, evidently satisfied. “Coming apart at the seams?”

Garrus nodded, and Jack turned her huge dark eyes his way. He saw the question in them. He ignored it. A moment later, she nodded and unclipped her pistol. “As long as you know,” she said, and he didn’t need subharmonics to pick up the second meaning in her words.

He was saved answering by the airlock’s light switching from red to green.

They stepped out into the _Empire_ ’s airlock, and from the airlock into a narrow room filled with boxes. No one jumped out at them from behind the ample cover, but they ducked anyway, Kaidan to his left and Jack to his right, effortless and controlled, as if they’d always worked together. It was strange, really, realizing they hadn’t. Garrus was the common thread, linking them together. And Shepard. Of course. Shepard’s training. Shepard’s expectations. Shepard’s team following Shepard’s lead. She’d made good soldiers of them all. Good teammates.

For the space of a heartbeat, two, Garrus was frozen under the weight of memory, the feeling of being in two places—two times—at once. He was on the _Empire_ with Alenko and Jack. He was also back on the damned _Fedele_ , younger and brasher, watching Shepard rifle through a wall-safe while he vibrated with impatience behind her, desperate to put a bullet in Saleon’s head.

 _You should poke around now,_ echoed her voice, soft and laughing in the back of his head. _Never know when you might find an old set of Phoenix armor._

_Never going to happen, Shepard._

_You’re such a spoilsport now that you don’t let me play dress-up with you anymore. You look lovely in pink. Brings out your eyes._  

Instead of answering her, he gestured for Jack and Kaidan to flank him and sweep the room while he kept watch through the scope of his rifle. They returned a few moments later, shaking their heads as they fell in beside him, poised, pistols ready. He removed his helmet and the others followed suit. The air was a little stale, the way recycled air in older ships was often stale, but otherwise unremarkable. No scent of fire or battle; nothing but dust.

At least, he supposed, it wasn’t the can of sardines situation Joker’d been afraid of. Yet. His visor’s sensors were as jammed as the _Normandy_ ’s had been, and his suit-board computer wasn’t giving him anything better. Every door was a question whose answer he couldn’t anticipate. Perhaps they’d catch the kidnappers off-guard; the ransom exchange Hackett had arranged wasn’t meant to happen for another day. Perhaps they’d walk into quarters or a mess and find the entire damned crew eating bad rations, weapons nowhere to hand.

Or perhaps the next door would be the one with the ambush behind it.

He _hated_ going in blind.

Even though he hadn’t been on a Kowloon class ship in years—since the _Fedele_ , or perhaps the _Ontario_ —the layout was familiar. They stepped out into a narrow hallway, also empty. At least the lights were on.

_At least there isn’t a child’s abandoned toy beneath an abandoned chair in an abandoned hospital on a planet left to die._

He blinked, raising his rifle. Whatever jamming tech they’d used was messing with his scope’s advanced sensors, too. Bastards. Switching out the Widow for his Mattock, he gestured for Kaidan to hack the next door. The red panel glowed like a malevolent eye, unblinking. The moment it switched to green, Kaidan dropped, bringing his pistol up.

The room was empty. Not just empty of targets—it was _empty_. Grey walls and grey floor and grey ceiling, unbroken even by scattered belongings or boxes of cargo. Empty.

Garrus didn’t like it. Everything about this ship—this mission—was giving him the uncomfortable itch under his plates that always spelled trouble. Or disappointment. Or failure.

Or all of the above.

A second door opened onto a similarly vacant room; they found a few boxes of rations and a rickety table behind the third. At least this was a sign of habitation, though the individuals who’d sat on the chairs and eaten the food were nowhere to be seen. Dust motes danced in the air as they passed, and the uneasiness grew instead of fading. The next room contained stacked bunks, bare even of bedding.

The fucking ship was _empty._

It wasn’t quite Mars, but the disappointment was still stark. It wasn’t that he’d _wanted_ to walk into a trap, but being sent halfway across the system only to find shadows and dust was enough to stoke the grief he’d been carrying since the final push on Earth into full-blown rage. If he’d been alone, he’d have shot something—a box of rations, the wall—just to hear a gunshot. Just to feel like he was doing _something._

He wasn’t alone, though. And he wasn’t going to add evidence to fuel Jack’s earlier worry. The last door led to another narrow hallway, and at the end of this second hall another red light blinked at them, promising another letdown.

Bracing himself for yet another empty room full of yet more empty boxes, and already wondering what their next step would be after this second crushing failure, Garrus lifted his omni-tool and began to hack the encrypted lock. 

The door slid open.

This room, the final room, had been transformed into a mobile treatment center; a tiny little hospital. The only real furniture was a large white bed with tilted mattress, surrounded by a bank of beeping machines. Tubes and IVs and cables connected the machines to a figure on the bed. From the door they could see only the fall of red hair cascading over a shoulder, the hint of a profile, and a slim white hand turning the page of a book—a paper book, not a datapad—propped on a blanketed lap. 

At Garrus’ side, Kaidan sucked in a incredulous little breath, as though he’d been punched in the stomach without warning.

Garrus knew the feeling.

The woman in the bed turned her head and lifted her eyes, big and grey-green, with their dark fringe of lashes. 

The eyes were entirely familiar, and impossibly blank. The twitch of her eyebrows wasn’t recognition. It wasn’t even surprise. It was a sort of mild understanding, like an expectation of hers had been met. Garrus took a step forward—stumbled a step forward—and the woman on the bed slipped a finger between the pages of her book, flipping the cover closed.

“You must be the recovery team,” she said, smiling. The smile was like her eyes: hers, undeniably _hers_ , but mild and unrecognizing. It was the kind of smile he’d seen her bestow upon strangers a hundred times. A thousand. It was the smile she saved for shopkeepers and fans and politicians who hadn’t annoyed her yet. “The doctors said you’d come. I admit, I was expecting you a little sooner. The medical team’s been gone at least a day.” She lifted the hand not holding the book and his eyes followed the tube that ran from it to one of the machines. “Good thing they left dinner.”

Behind him, Jack muttered, “What the fuck?” under her breath.

Garrus’ own thoughts echoed hers. He took another step forward, the barrel of his gun dipping. “Shepard?”

“Of course,” she said, raising her shoulders in a shrug. At the apex of the movement she winced, as if in pain she hadn’t anticipated. Garrus took another step closer, wanting to see for himself what was causing the pain, wanting to check for new wounds, new scars. Shepard’s eyes narrowed, and he thought he saw the ghost of fear—fear, of _him_ —slip across her features. He knew it broke every protocol imaginable, but he holstered his gun entirely, leaving his hands empty and placating. Shepard’s bland smile returned, though a little wariness remained in her eyes. 

With a hint of amusement—and oh, Spirits, the amusement was her, too, but it was so very, very wrong on this empty ship in the middle of nowhere—she said, “Were you expecting someone else?”

_Tell me something true._

_Why_ , he thought, aware of his own ragged breathing, his own elevated heart rate, _am I still hearing you in my head? You’re right there. You’re_ rightthere _._

_You’re right there looking at me as though we’ve never met._

Perhaps _he_ was the one in desperate need of something real, something true, something that didn’t feel like a nightmare brought to life.

_Tell me something true._

“Shepard,” Kaidan said, his voice too rough and low and pleading, “are you—don’t you recognize us?”

A kind of pained understanding furrowed her brow. “Should I?” she asked. “I’m sorry. They… well. They’re still working on the memory thing. Were you the same team who found me? I don’t remember much from the early days. I guess I was pretty messed up.”

Garrus knew he had to find words, but a wild panic twisted his gut and froze his throat. His mandibles flared and he couldn’t quite swallow the low keening note his subvocals were making. Shepard glanced over his shoulder, toward Kaidan, and said, “I—sorry, the turian’s making me uneasy. Do you think he could wait outside?”

The turian.

_The turian._

Garrus swallowed, and, subharmonics still raw with grief, said, “I’m Garrus Vakarian.”

Her smile turned tight, strained. This was the smile saved for politicians who _had_ annoyed her, and people she didn’t much like but who required her politeness. 

She had _never_ smiled that smile at him before. Not once. Not ever. He wanted to close his eyes just so he wouldn’t have to see it, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t look away. “Do you mind, uh, Mr. Vakarian?”

“What the _fuck_?” Jack repeated, shaking her head.

 _I should go. I should_ go.

It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny at all.

“Of course,” Garrus said. Managed to say. He thought Jack reached out to touch his arm as he passed, but he didn’t feel it. Behind him, he heard Shepard speaking, but he didn’t turn around, didn’t stop. She wasn’t talking to him. She didn’t want to talk to him. 

Doctor Chakwas was an expert on all things Shepard; she’d know what to do. She had to know what to do.

But his plates still itched and his stomach still twisted and in his head he heard Shepard’s voice saying _the turian’s making me uneasy_ over and over and over.


	14. Between Two Lives

_The night air is redolent with the perfume of gardenias and roses, even though she knows neither plant grows in the vicinity. Not for lack of trying. Or money spent on gardeners._

_Her foster mother spares no expense when it comes to making an impression, and if the society papers are raving about the perfection of evening garden parties scented with gardenia and rose, by God,_ this _party will be the height to which all others aspire._

 _She imagines black-clad hirelings in balaclavas shuffling through the bushes with spray bottles filled with gardenia-and-rose-scented water, or dozens of impossibly-expensive air fresheners hidden amongst the bunting and scentless bouquets, and she laughs even though her feet hurt and the soda water is doing exactly_ nothing _to take the wine out of her dress. She doesn’t even know who did the spilling; she just remembers looking down and seeing the swiftly-spreading stain marring the white silk at her abdomen._

_“What do you need me to do?” one of the serving staff girls had asked, desperate, her grey-green eyes wild, her red hair in disarray._

_Come to think of it, perhaps the server had been the one to cause the spill. Poor girl. No wonder she was so upset. Not that it matters now. The damage is already done._

_The resistance of the stain makes her swallow her laughter almost as soon as it bubbles up; they will miss her inside soon. Even now, she’s meant to be dancing with one or the other of her foster father’s important friends, and she’s aware of the clock ticking. There’ll be hell to pay if she’s the reason the party is ruined, if her absence is what the society columns are discussing tomorrow instead of sublime food and beautiful people in beautiful clothes and gardenia-scented air. Her foster mother’s disappointment is legendary. She shivers. Her stomach aches and when she tries to breathe the stench of flowers makes her head hurt._

_Dabbing the cloth against the left side of her midsection where the stain is worst, she succeeds only in turning even more of the white a ghastly shade of pink. Perhaps if she uses her shawl as a very wide belt. It won’t be pretty, but it’ll be better than absence—_

_Footsteps on the path steal her attention from the hopeless rescue attempt. Her little bench is in a particularly shadowy corner, and she half-expects the newcomer to keep going, but instead he pauses, and the sudden silence is an expectant one. A nightbird chirps. She’s pretty sure the birds come from the same party-supply store as the gardenia water._

_“Hello?” she asks. It echoes in the dark. Hello, hello, hello like the whispers of strangers. She swallows to moisten a suddenly dry throat and succeeds only in making herself cough._

_The man who approaches is tall and dark; even in the shadows she can tell that much. She should probably know him—she’s been introduced to countless people this evening—but his features are hidden by both the darkness of the garden and the shadows cast by the brim of his hat and she can’t quite make him out. Perhaps he is one of her foster father’s friends, come to claim his dance with her. She sighs, but before she can explain her predicament, he says quietly, “You’re not supposed to be here.”_

_She laughs again, this time at his audacity. Even to her own ears the mirth rings hollow, a little too high-pitched, a little too strained. “I beg your pardon? This is my party.”_

_“Is it?” he asks. “You’re certain?”_

_She parts her lips, prepared to protest, but something stops her. His voice is strangely familiar, deep and resonant. The kind of voice a person might trust. He steps a little nearer, and she sees he’s wearing the trim blue dress uniform of an Alliance officer. The bars and decorations mean something, but she has no idea what. She’s pretty sure he’s important though. He carries himself like an important man, shoulders back and chin lifted. And only important men are invited to the parties her foster parents throw._

_Until now, the shadows and the color of the fabric has hidden it, but as he moves nearer she sees the darker patch on his abdomen, almost identical to her own. She reaches out with her pinkish-stained white cloth before she can think better of it—she still needs to clean herself up, after all—and says, frowning, “Oh. Someone spilled their wine on you, too.”_

_“God,” he says, and the heaviness of the single word brings incomprehensible tears to her eyes. “Feels like ages since I just sat down.”_

_“Best seats in the house,” she offers, shifting sideways. “If you’re looking to avoid all the business inside, I mean.” He tilts his head the way a puzzled child examines a problem they don’t understand. The intensity of his gaze bothers her but she doesn’t look away. That intensity reminds her of someone else. She can’t think who, though, and pushes the thought away. It makes her uncomfortable. Uneasy. A few moments later, he sinks down next to her and instead of gardenias and roses, she smells something sharper, bitter and metallic._

_The wine, she decides, is a terrible vintage. Or it’s corked. Her foster mother is going to have someone’s head when she finds out._

_“Did it go all the way through?” she asks. When he says nothing, she presses, “The wine. Did it go through your jacket? Here, let me—“_

_“You did good, child.”_

_Her reaction is sudden, violent; wine-stain forgotten, she flings herself to her feet and glares down at the interloper with the deceptively kind voice. Her white skirts swirl around her and she sees streaks of wine where she hadn’t noticed them before. The dress is ruined. Everything is ruined._

_He’s not looking up at her, so she sees only the brim of his hat and the unprotected nape of his neck._

_“You don’t know anything about me,” she declares, edging a little farther away from the bench. Her delicate heels scrape too-loudly against the pebbled path. She wants to run but her breath catches and her stomach twists and she can only force herself to take another small step backward. “You—you’re making me uneasy.”_

_He raises his face then, and for a moment she almost knows his name, almost understands how he fits into the puzzle of her life. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he repeats, his lips turning up in a faint, pained smile even as his hands clutch at his belly. “You should go.”_

_The words stop her in her tracks, and she puts out a hand. With nothing to grab onto, she stumbles, falling forward, reaching desperately to break her fall. Her hands scrape against the tiny stones. She hears the delicate fabric of her dress tear, and just for an instant the bitter smell of blood drowns out even the memory of gardenias and roses—_

“—Long will she be out?”

“I couldn’t say. Shall I wake her—”

“Don’t.”

“Garrus—”

“Who is she? What—”

“ _Enough_. This is not a conversation we ought to have now. Here.”

She kept her breath slow and even, fighting the pull of sleep and the garden, trying instead to focus on the voices around her. For some reason they weren’t the ones she was expecting. The woman—and that was strange, she didn’t remember a woman from before—had an accent. British. The other voice was dual-toned. Alien. Memory came back in a rush so sudden it was almost painful. The turian from the recovery squad. His name had been Garrus, if she remembered right, though the fog of painkillers made everything a bit blurry. The doctor—yes, the woman was the doctor; not her usual doctor, a different one, but hadn’t they said a new doctor would come? She thought she remembered that from within the fog—had put her under while they moved her from one ship to the other.

For the pain, the new doctor had said.

She hadn’t felt like protesting, because the pain was constant and relief from it always hard-won. There was only so much fight in a person.

_We’ll get through this. We always do._

The turian’s sigh distracted her before she could question where exactly that thought came from. If she’d ever heard a sound more resigned, she didn’t know when. “I need to know. Is this another of Cerberus’… spares?”

“Not as far as I can tell.”

She almost opened her eyes at the sound the turian made, like he’d been punched in the stomach, punctuated by a low keening, almost like a cry. When he spoke, his tone was rough and sharp and startling; the vocal equivalent of walking on broken glass. She shivered, and fought the urge to close her hands into fists at her sides. “So we’ve got a Shepard who doesn’t remember she’s Shepard. We know nothing about who took her, what they’ve done to her, or what possible motives they might have had—”

“Come now, Garrus. Kaidan said she answered to her name easily enough right from the beginning. She does appear to know who she is. It may be temporary, or entirely treatable. You mustn’t jump to the worst possible scenario. I’ll know more when she wakes—”

“She didn’t know m—us. She didn’t recognize us.” She had to strain to hear him, and she felt a pang of regret for the way she’d spoken to him back on the ship. It was only he’d been looking at her so intently, and she hadn’t ever been so close to a turian before; she couldn’t _help_ the frisson of fear—

One of the machines started beeping and she realized it was because her own heart rate was elevated. 

_You’re not supposed to be here._

“Can you open your eyes for me, Commander?” A moment later, the doctor tried again, more insistently, “Shepard? Can you open your eyes?”

If he was right—if she _had_ forgotten—if she _knew_ this turian and all these people, these strangers—what else might be missing? The incomprehensible reason she was referred to by a rank? By a surname? She didn’t remember the last time anyone had used her given name. She swallowed hard. Of course she didn’t. Her memory was pocked with holes; she had no idea how much was missing. Was the name she remembered even her name at all? The machine’s concerned noises increased in tempo and she forced her eyes open to keep from being pushed under again, back to the garden, back to the cloying, manufactured scent of gardenias and roses. Back to the blood—no, the wine, the wine on her dress.

“You’re fine,” the doctor soothed. She had a nice voice. The kind of voice a person might trust. It had been wine on her dress in the garden, hadn’t it? And on the jacket of the man who’d told her she didn’t belong? Whose voice was familiar but whose name she no longer knew? “Take a deep breath.”

She tried, but her chest felt tight and her head felt hot and the whole room stank of flowers and antiseptic. She was aware of the turian—of Garrus—stepping closer but he froze as soon as her eyes found his. The right side of his face was a mess of healed scars. Between his height and the size of his shoulders—probably mostly armor, she tried to reassure herself—he loomed. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, wanted to ask him to leave the room again, but something about the way the doctor had spoken with him earlier made her hold her tongue. It was strange, but she thought maybe he was actually the one in _charge._  

Whatever he saw on her face made him step back, but his eyes—or at least the eye she could see, the one not hidden by the glowing interface of a visor—never left her. She felt laid bare before that gaze, but if he’d been human, she’d have said the tilt of his head was confused, perhaps even unhappy.

She didn’t know what to do with that.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” she said, and this, finally, was enough to break the turian’s intense scrutiny. His eyes widened and his mandibles flared and then he glanced away, toward the floor, away from her.

“None of that,” the doctor admonished lightly, still gentle, still kind. “You may not remember it at the moment, but this is precisely where you’re meant to be.”

“I’m sorry,” she added in an embarrassed rush. Only she wasn’t sure if she was sorry for being here, or sorry for hurting him, or sorry for something else she couldn’t remember. Perhaps some combination of all three. Either way it cut deep, and once again the doctor had to remind her to breathe. She smelled roses. She smelled blood. Even though she suspected neither was actually present. Hirelings in balaclavas with spray bottles full of blood-and-rose scent.

 _Tell me something true_ , she thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words aloud. Not after the reaction the last ones had wrought.

The turian—Garrus—crossed his arms over his chest and she had the strangest feeling it wasn’t a disapproving or disappointed gesture. He looked for all the world as though the weight of his own arms was the only thing keeping him from breaking.

She didn’t know what to do with that, either. She didn’t know what to do with any of it.


	15. Neither Living Nor Dead

Traynor was waiting for him in the QEC room. He didn’t ask how she knew and she didn’t offer an explanation, but when he stalked in, she was already there, brow furrowed as she perused the contents of her datapad.

The line in her forehead smoothed out too carefully and too quickly to be quite natural as she raised her head, and though he could see the questions chasing each other behind her eyes and in the lift of her eyebrows— _how is she? How are you? Is she going to be okay? Are you?_ —she did not give voice to them. It was a small mercy. He was disproportionally glad of it. He knew those questions and more would require answers soon, but not now. Not yet.

“Can you ask them to get in touch with Liara?” Even as quietly as he spoke, the sound was too much, too jarring. The scene in the medbay kept playing over and over in his head, and even the memory of Shepard’s _I’m not supposed to be here_ was enough to change the quality of his tone. He didn’t want to know what his sister would pick up from his subvocals. “I’d like to actually speak with her, if I can.” He paused, weighing his next request. “My father, too, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Traynor asked no questions about this, either. Reaching into a pocket, she produced a dextro ration bar and held it out until he took it. Even the crinkle of his fingers closing around the packaging grated, reminding him of the slowly-building headache he’d been fighting since the _Empire._ He needed to sleep. He didn’t remember the last time he’d gotten more than an hour or two at a stretch, and Chakwas had flat-out refused to give him another shot of stims.

While Traynor worked, speaking quietly over the comms to the technician on the other end, Garrus peeled back the metallic wrapper of the meal bar and ate slowly, methodically, tasting nothing. Only when the first swallow hit his stomach did he realize exactly how hungry he was. Too many stims, and this wasn’t the neat little kill-zone funnel of his perch on Omega. There he could watch everything, be aware of everything. Now? Now he knew damned well he was seeing only the smallest piece of a very big picture and he had no idea who might be creeping up on his unprotected six.

When the last bite disappeared, he leaned his aching head against the wall and closed his eyes. If he’d had thinner cases with less clues to go on, he didn’t know when. He might’ve been blocked by red tape and jurisdiction at every turn during his investigation into Saren, but at least he’d had a _name_.

 _And then you had me,_ Shepard mused. Her voice held a ghost of a laugh. _And I did all the hard work for you. Of course, that was back when the sight of you didn’t elevate my heart rate or dilate my pupils. For either of the reasons those things happen._ She paused and he thought he was free of her, but then she added, all laughter gone, _I think I liked it better when it was love, though, instead of fear._

“Shut up,” he whispered aloud, just as Traynor stepped back from the console and Hackett materialized in glowing blue behind her.

She didn’t ask him a question about that, either. Her expression told him she’d heard it, though. “Thanks, Traynor,” he said. For the food. For getting Hackett on the line. For not asking. “Can you gather the crew? I don’t have a lot of answers to the questions they’ll have, but they deserve to know what I do. Make it the lounge. I have a feeling more than one will want a drink.”

She acknowledged his request with a brisk nod. He waited until she’d left before stepping close to the console.

“Vakarian,” Hackett said. He wasn’t wearing his hat this time, and his grey hair was ruffled in a way Garrus found vaguely unsettling. “We’ve been waiting on a report for hours. What the hell happened out there?”

He knew then he should have thought about this moment, these words, more carefully, because of course the question had been coming, and of course this was one that required an immediate answer.

Of course he had no idea what to say.

“We found her,” he began, slowly, each word a reminder of _I’m not supposed to be here_ and a familiar face completely devoid of recognition.

“Thank God—”

“She’s been… compromised.”

Like a man accustomed to hearing bad news, Hackett merely folded his hands behind his back and inclined his head. When Garrus didn’t immediately fill the silence with an explanation, he raised his eyebrows meaningfully and said, “How so, Vakarian?”

“She didn’t know us, sir.”

“Didn’t know you,” Hackett echoed, and accustomed to bad news or not, Garrus couldn’t pretend the man was unaffected. The admiral’s shoulders hunched and he gave his head a slow shake. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Garrus inhaled deeply, gathering his distress and pushing it to the side in favor of facts. Clean, cold, simple facts. “Doctor Chakwas is still attempting to determine the severity of the amnesia. Whatever happened at the end left a number of physical injuries as well, and the doctor believes some of Shepard’s… augmentations must be underperforming for her to be in such bad shape more than a month after the fact.”

_Don’t think about broken legs—again—or a bruised spine. Don’t think about the fresh scars on her face or the burns mottling her arms where she must’ve thrown them up defensively._

_Don’t think about the emptiness in her eyes or the words, “The turian’s making me uneasy.”_

“But she’s alive,” Hackett said. 

“Yes.”

“And she’s… you’re certain it’s her?”

Garrus nodded. “We’ll be back in a few days. You can verify it yourself—”

“No,” Hackett said. “No, you won’t.”

Garrus’ mandibles flared before he could muffle the surprise.

“You’re well-provisioned and the _Normandy_ ’s accustomed to—”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Garrus drove a fist into his armored thigh hard enough to hurt. He wished then he hadn’t eaten, because his stomach twisted unpleasantly around the hard knot of the rations. “She’s broken so you don’t want her anymore?”

“That is not—”

“Tell yourself she was being a good soldier if that’s what helps you sleep at night, but there are plenty of _good soldiers_ who would have balked at the things you asked of her, and this is how you repay her?”

“Vakarian—”

“You’ll hold your big memorial and keep on doing things in her name? Is that it? Shunt her off to some private facility to live out the rest of her days in obscurity while the rest of the galaxy thinks she’s dead?”

“Vakarian!” Hackett snapped with all the weight of an admiral’s expectation of instant silence, and if Garrus were any less frayed, any less exhausted—

_Any less heartbroken._

—He’d have listened, he’d have stopped. But he couldn’t. His voice rose, too loud in the confines of the QEC room, drowning out whatever Hackett was trying to say. “She’s _Commander Shepard_. She’s the reason any of us is alive to have this conversation, and you will not— _you will not_ —dismiss her as an… an _inconvenience._ ”

He gripped the console, bowing his head so he wouldn’t have to look the startled admiral in the face. His heart raced, pounding as hard in his chest as it did after a sprint even though he’d done nothing more strenuous than shout, and his breath came in frustrated little gasps.

“That’s enough, son.”

Garrus lifted his head, blinking. Instead of the admiral, his father now stood outlined in blue before him. Garrus straightened and settled his shoulders. “Dad.”

“I don’t think anyone’s suggesting she be forgotten.” His father turned his head, evidently listening to whatever Hackett was saying. He nodded. “Garrus. What have I always taught you?”

Garrus fought the instinct to shift uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Do things right or not at all?”

His father gave a low chuckle and Garrus’ rage ebbed just a little. “Fair enough. But in this case I mean ‘follow the evidence.’”

“ _What_ evidence?”

Even the imperfect projection of the QEC couldn’t mask the very particular tilt of his dad’s head and the very particular flare of his dad’s mandibles. Garrus had been on the receiving end of both countless times. It was his father’s patented _and now I will teach you a lesson you ought to have learned long ago_ look. “Exactly.”

Garrus rubbed absently at his neck while the fingers of his other hand drummed an uneven beat against his thigh. “They’ve been at least a step ahead from the beginning. We’ve done everything according to their plans so far. They wanted us to find her.”

“It stands to reason they want you to bring her back.”

“So the admiral wants us to stall. Wants to see who’s the most anxious when she doesn’t reappear right away.”

His dad didn’t smile, but the lifted brow said he approved. “An old tactic, but an effective one.”

Garrus felt something tight and unpleasant loosen in his chest and he took the first deep breath he’d managed since Shepard looked up at him on the _Empire_ and didn’t make the smart-ass joke he was expecting. “And meanwhile the _Normandy_ ’s all but invisible, so if we go off the grid, they’ll have a hell of a time trying to find us.”

“And with the time you buy, you follow the evidence. Even the most careful criminal leaves a trace. They may have wiped their fingerprints or cleaned up the spatter, but no one’s perfect. No one. And these people, whoever they are, left you the biggest clue of all.”

“Her,” Garrus said.

“Her,” his father agreed. He glanced over his shoulder again, and cocked his head. “There’s an asari here to speak with you, and the admiral’s asked us to clear the room, but I… I am sorry, son. That this is the way it happened.”

Garrus swallowed past the knot of emotion caught in his throat, trying not to imagine how many times his father had been forced to look into his wife’s eyes only to see incomprehension or complete lack of recognition staring back. “I do need to speak to Liara, Dad, but I… do you remember Attus Klim?”

His father stilled for a moment and nodded, ever so slightly. “I do.”

“I think I heard he might be on Earth. Was wondering if you could look him up.”

“Of course,” his dad replied. “Always was a troublemaker, Klim.”

As his father stepped away from the Earth-side QEC, Garrus only hoped the leak—and didn’t there have to be a leak, for Shepard’s captors to have stayed abreast of the situation at every turn?—wasn’t familiar enough with old C-Sec code phrases to know invoking Attus Klim meant an inside source, an informer, a _traitor,_ was suspected.

A few moments later, Liara appeared, looking as tired as he felt. Still, she found a smile for him. He thought she probably meant for it to be bolstering. Instead it only seemed sad. “Garrus,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

“Wish I had better news.”

Liara lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s more than we had.”

“You know what I have to do.”

“Of course.”

The opposite of everything he’d said aloud. The opposite of everything already spoken. He trusted Liara completely, but the traitor could be anyone else. The tech who connected the QEC calls. That chatty tech’s lover. The man who washed the admiral’s clothes. Any number of the faceless, nameless, practically-invisible people who kept a camp as large as the admiral’s running. One of the admiral’s lieutenants.

In the worst-case scenario, it could be Hackett himself.

Nothing spoken aloud was safe.

She narrowed her eyes, looking at him the way she often looked at Javik—like a puzzle, a collection of disparate facts she needed to somehow make sense of. “There’s something else?”

“Yeah,” he said, “you know a bit about human myths, right?”

Her lips twitched, but her expression remained grave. “A little.”

“Someone mentioned a Lazarus the other day. You have any idea what that means?”

Shrugging, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Forgive me, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Damn. Well. If you come across any information, knowing would really help me out.”

It was vague. He hoped it was vague enough. Liara was silent a few moments before nodding her understanding. _Find Lawson._ “I’ll send information along if I find it. When I find it. It may take some time. No more than a week?”

“No hurry.”

_Hurry._

“Liara? You spent some time on Mars, didn’t you?”

“I did. I hoped to spend more time at their Prothean site when this war was done.”

He shook his head slowly. “Not a place anyone wants to visit now.”

“No,” she said, “I suppose not.”

_We’ll retrace our steps and swing back in a week. Get Lawson there if you can._

Perhaps it was the conversation, speaking in circles to keep anyone listening in from picking up the pieces, but his headache was even stronger now, throbbing behind his eyes like a claxon. He put a hand to his brow, but the pressure only reminded him there were other conversations to have, other questions to answer.

“Get some sleep, Garrus,” Liara admonished. “You look exhausted.”

“I will if you will.”

This time, she didn’t even pretend to smile.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”


	16. Stirring Dull Roots With Spring Rain

Dozing, falling in and out of a sleep not deep enough to afford dreams, not deep enough to taunt her with the cloying scent of flowers or the whispering of voices belonging to faces she could no longer bring to mind, she tried to remember. 

She _needed_ to remember. 

The memories were like water she tried to hold in cupped hands, though, or like sand running through her fingers. Early ones were clear. Giggling as her father threw her up, up, up into the air, always catching her. The feel of her mother’s fingers braiding hair that had once been very long. Studying for exams. Aching with the desire to kiss Brandon Deluca from calculus class. The smell of fresh air and the feel of sunlight warming her cheeks.

Life.

_Blood and fire and blood and her parents and a kitchen knife stuck in an alien chest and yellow paint bubbling and peeling and skin bubbling and peeling and so much blood._

Death.

She could sift through Mindoir like she was looking at photographs, at holos, at clips of vids. After that, things got murkier, harder to grasp, less like vids and more like single frames flashing before vanishing into darkness again. Shards of a whole. As soon as she caught hold of a fragment—laughing with cards in her hands; the echo of music she thought belonged to a tango; the heavy weight of something cool and metallic in her hand as a child’s voice murmured _choose, choose, choose_ —it twisted away again, indistinct, cutting her to ribbons, leaving her somehow even more exhausted and sore.

She didn’t want to dream, but she couldn’t make sense of the waking world, either.

Instead she lay, eyes closed, listening to the doctor move around the medbay. Sometimes the doctor spoke to herself under her breath, the warm voice somehow soothing even when it wasn’t directed at her. Periodically, the light scent of perfume—nothing with roses or gardenias, thank God—indicated the doctor was nearby, but she didn’t intrude and didn’t disturb.

She wondered if it was to give her peace and quiet, or because she was a hopeless case. 

She was considering opening her eyes and asking some questions without answers— _who am I? How much have I lost? Will I ever get it back?_ —when she heard the door open. Except for the turian, the doctor had shooed away any attempted visitors. This time, however, she did not. 

“Ahh,” she said, “I did wonder when you’d be by. You’ll be happy to know the tissue’s coming along quite well. How are you feeling? Making yourself at home?”

She took a few deep breaths, long and slow and steadying, waiting to see if the turian would be the one to answer the doctor’s inquiries. When the responding voice, however, was a woman’s, she let her eyes drift open, and turned her head.

The newcomer was also a turian, though she was confined to a wheelchair and a quick glance showed one leg amputated at the knee. Her own leg, broken and still recovering but whole, gave a sympathetic twinge at the sight. Like the other—like Garrus, this turian’s face was marked with blue, sweeping gracefully beneath her eyes, across her nose, down her mandibles. Her face wasn’t scarred, though, and when she spoke, her voice didn’t sound like broken glass.

“Meant to come sooner, only I got caught up with something down in the armory. Lost track of the time.” The turian waved, a broad gesture encompassing the rest of the medbay. “And how’s your other patient doing? I haven’t seen Garrus to ask; I still can’t believe he found—”

“She’s awake,” the doctor interrupted, not unkindly, smiling a little smile likely meant to be reassuring. “Best not say anything you wouldn’t like overheard by a captive audience.”

The turian woman had a nice laugh, and she wheeled her chair closer. She wasn’t sure if it was the chair, or the relative slightness, or the distinct lack of heavy armor and spiked head fringe, but the turian in the chair wasn’t nearly as frightening as the other.

The laughter probably helped. The other turian certainly didn’t seem like the laughing type.

“Sorry,” she said, as blithely as she could. She didn’t think she was fooling anyone. “I’m afraid I don’t remember you.”

“You wouldn’t,” the turian said, evidently a little confused. “We’ve never met. I’m Solana. Solana Vakarian.”

A faint smile pulled at her lips as understanding dawned. At least the blue markings made sense. “You’re his—Garrus’—wife? Mate? Uh. Sorry. I don’t know the terminology you prefer.”

Instead of more laughter, Solana brought a hand up to cover her mouth, her mandibles flaring wide. She wondered what that meant. She didn’t need translation to read the sadness in the turian woman’s amber eyes, though, or in the sound of her voice when she whispered, “Oh. Oh, Spirits, no.”

“I-I didn’t mean to offend—”

“I’m not offended,” Solana said. “I just… didn’t realize. Garrus is my brother.” Without pulling away, she twisted in her chair enough to look back at the doctor, “Is he—”

“Coping,” the doctor said. “I am not entirely convinced he’s doing it well. He needs to sleep, and he needs to eat, and he needs to stop ignoring my insistence that he do both of these things sooner rather than later.”

“Right. I know what his brand of coping looks like.” Solana took a deep breath, releasing it on a sigh. “This. _This_ of all possible things.” Turning her attention away from the doctor, she said, “Forgive me, I’ve been terribly rude. I wish the circumstances were better, but I am very happy to finally meet you… Commander?”

Hesitation raised the final word into a question, and it was somehow gratifying to find someone else as uncertain about what to call her as she found herself. “So I’m told,” she said with a forced lightness she absolutely did not feel.

Solana didn’t flinch. She only folded her hands in her lap and tilted her head slightly, saying, “Would you prefer I call you something else?”

She felt the embarrassing prickle of tears in her eyes and turned her head to hide them.

Gently, so softly she knew the words were meant only for her, Solana said, “It’s all right if you don’t know.”

When she considered the name her parents had given her, she didn’t think of her laughing childhood or her singing father or her mother who loved gardening and gave the best hugs. She remembered being young and stupid and helpless, sitting in a tree while her world burned down, clutching a screwdriver because it was the only weapon she’d thought to grab. She remembered being shipped off to a family she did not know, who did not know her, who’d kept her in a pretty white room in a pretty white house dressed in pretty white clothes, trapped like a bird in a pretty white cage. None of that was right. None of that was _her._

“Can I have a mirror?”

Solana nodded at once, but she didn’t miss the way the doctor paled. “Are you entirely certain that’s—”

Solana wheeled herself to the counter and poked through the items there until the doctor finally helped her by opening a drawer and pulling out a small square of glass. Setting it on her lap, Solana returned to the bed and held it out. Her hand didn’t shake and her gaze was clear and unfaltering. 

She appreciated that. Her own hand did quaver a little as it closed around the edge of the mirror, and she found she couldn’t immediately lift it even though she wanted very much to know what it would reveal.

She knew the litany of her injuries: broken legs and bruised spine and cracked ribs; fractured collarbone, burns on her arms, countless lacerations. Head trauma. Amnesia. Some she’d figured out for herself, others she’d overheard the doctor discussing with the tu—with Garrus. Most were healing. The doctor seemed somehow surprised they’d not healed more quickly, more thoroughly. Her left arm wasn’t her dominant one, but it was as whole and healthy as could be expected, and was certainly strong enough to lift a mirror.

She inhaled deeply enough to pain her healing ribs, and then she raised the glass.

The scar bisecting her left eyebrow was missing—that was what she noticed first. The one she’d gotten from falling out of a tree when she was seven and intent on disobeying every rule her parents ever laid out. She’d spent most of her teenaged life doing every damned thing she could think of to cover up that scar. Makeup. Bangs. She frowned, bringing her eyebrows together, and the reflection, with her unscarred brow, frowned back.

“The scars and burns will heal—” the doctor began, only to be quieted by an insistent sound from Solana.

She ignored them both. The eyes were the same, big and deceptively guileless, grey with a hint of green, like her mother’s. She had her father’s straight nose and full lips, though in her memories her father’s lips almost always smiled. These were concrete things, things she remembered the way she remembered the missing scar. Her hair fell past her shoulders, and somehow this struck her as both too long and not long enough. Puzzling. Then again, given the reddish burn scarring on the right side of her face and neck, she supposed she was glad to have hair at all.

“I look older,” she said, unable to contain her own surprise.

Her collarbone protested, but she brought her right hand up to touch the faint lines at the corner of her eye. Drifting down, she pressed on her cheekbone, relishing the slight ache of it. She traced her unbroken left eyebrow. Her right was the one that would have the scar now; a mostly-healed pink line crossed the very end and ran down her temple, stopping just before her ear. She didn’t remember it, but she must have turned her head that way, bringing up her arms too late to completely protect herself from whatever had done the damage.

_Your time is at an end. You must decide._

Did she remember fire? Or was she only filling in a blank with the most obvious choice?

 _Let’s get this over with._  

She brought her fingers to her mouth and slowly, very slowly, pulled her lips into the semblance of a smile. It didn’t touch her still-moist eyes, but it was a smile nevertheless.

She almost thought she recognized herself with a smile. Even if it wasn’t quite real.

Lifting her eyes away from the glass and its reflection, she found Solana still sitting patiently beside her, gaze steady but undemanding.

“Shepard,” she said, and meant it. _Shepard._ The word still held weight she couldn’t quite carry, but it was better than the nameless, hollow feeling that had been sitting in her belly like a stone since she woke up. _Shepard._ “I’m Shepard.”

Solana’s mandibles twitched again, but differently. Shepard thought this was the turian equivalent of a smile, perhaps, and found her own smile growing wider. She didn’t lift the mirror again, but she imagined this expression must, at last, brighten her eyes.

With the same unhurried calm, Solana asked, “What do you remember? What’s the last really clear thing?”

“I—my eighteenth birthday, I think.”

The doctor sucked in a startled gasp of an inhale.

“It was—” Shepard began, only to be interrupted by the doctor saying, “Your eighteenth birthday was the day you enlisted. Perhaps that makes—”

“Enlisted?” Shepard shook her head a bit too vigorously and her aching neck protested. “Enlisted, no. I—there was a party. I danced until dawn. I couldn’t breathe.”

The doctor turned away too quickly for Shepard to catch her expression, but she didn’t think it was a  good one. She thought about the marriage of familiar and unfamiliar she’d seen in her own reflection, the lines at the corners of her eyes, and the drawn cheeks, and the permanent furrow between her wrongly-scarred brows.

“How old are you now?” Solana asked.

Shepard blinked, her eyes burning. Her hands closed into fists. “I have no idea.”

Solana leaned forward and laid gentle fingers on the back of Shepard’s hand until she relaxed her vicious hold on the bedsheets. “It’s okay,” she said. “Something is better than nothing. We can always work with something.”

Her fingers twitched again, but the hand on hers reminded her to breathe. “How can you sound so sure?”

“My mom,” Solana explained. “She… there’s a turian disease. Affects memory. I… was with her a lot. Had a lot of practice helping her try to find things she’d lost. Sometimes it even worked.”

“Corpalis,” Shepard blurted, before she could catch the word and swallow it. A flush heated her cheeks. “I don’t know where that came from—he never even told me.”

“He?” Solana asked, brow plates lifting. It mightn’t have been a human face or a human expression, but Shepard recognized genuine surprise.

Shepard closed her eyes, though she couldn’t have said what, exactly, she was hiding from. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I said that.”

“Something is better than nothing,” Solana repeated, and, strangely enough, Shepard almost found herself believing it.


	17. Stumbling in Cracked Earth

All things considered, the crew did well taking things in stride.

Then again, Garrus thought as he looked around the lounge, it was entirely possible he was just dealing with shipwide shock. A pall hung over the room, almost heavy enough to touch, certainly heavy enough to bend necks and round shoulders beneath it. Though several people had poured drinks, the glasses remained mostly untouched. Every once in a while someone would lift a tumbler, almost drink from it, and then stop, as if remembering how inappropriate celebration was. Or like they feared what it might mean if they started drowning sorrows now.

 If anything was sadder than a roomful of warriors with nothing to fight, he didn’t know what. They were all damned heroes several times over, and none of them had the first idea how to deal with something like _this_ , this middle ground of not quite victory and not quite defeat.

Not that he blamed them.

Oh, they’d done the impossible. They’d found their commander, but it certainly wasn’t the glorious reunion they—he’d—imagined. Shepard wasn’t with them, teasing Grunt about his dinosaurs or insisting Javik stay for just one drink, or messing up Alenko’s hair every time his back was turned. If she were here, the room would have been ringing with conversation and laughter and the awful music she always chose. She’d have thrown back the pall with the force of her optimism, just like always.

_I’m not supposed to be here._

“So we’re just gonna… what?” Jack asked without vitriol, staring at her palms. “Sit and wait and cross our fucking fingers?”

“No,” Garrus replied. “We might not know what’s going on, but _something_ is. Shepard didn’t get out here by herself.”

“Are they the ones responsible for her… memory?” Tali asked. Curled up in the corner of the couch, she didn’t even pretend to drink. “Or could they have been trying to help without… well, without all the attention?”

“I sure as hell don’t think dragging her halfway across the system in a makeshift treatment facility indicates they had her best interests in mind.”

Tali inclined her head, but he couldn’t quite decide if it was because she agreed with him. “Do you think it’s something that can be undone?”

He retreated behind the armor of medicine he didn’t understand to keep the seething worries at bay. “Dr. Chakwas doesn’t know the extent of what’s lost, or whether the damage is reversible. Yet. We—she—wanted to wait, wanted to let Shepard recover a bit before she started pressing. We don’t want to make things worse.”

_The turian’s making me uneasy._

“Can you not use something like the Echo Shard?” Javik leaned against the wall, rubbing his hands together absently, as though he wished instead to be washing them. “The memory will be preserved. You may put back what was taken.”

“Maybe if we had anything resembling that technology,” Garrus said, trying and mostly failing to keep the bitterness from his tone. “But we don’t.”

“Primitives,” he muttered, but, like Jack, the rancor was missing. If it were anyone but Javik, Garrus would have said he sounded mournful.

“Okeer’s imprinting?” Grunt asked. “If we collected enough of who she was…”

“We’d have to recreate whatever it was Okeer did.” Garrus shrugged. “He didn’t leave much behind, except you. Even if we had access to his research, or his facilities, we know he was using Collector tech we just don’t have access to. And we sure as hell don’t have room for the margin of error he had. One homicidal not-quite-Shepard clone was enough to last a lifetime.”

Kaidan, standing at the window and silent until now, turned to face them, his expression somehow both pensive and hopeful. “Well, what about Liara? She… back with the beacon, she joined with Shepard’s mind. Hell, she did it twice. Isn’t that a little like Javik’s shard? Shepard’s memories collected and sifted through and presumably still taking up space in Liara’s head?”

“Maybe,” Garrus said. “She didn’t… she didn’t mention it, so if she thinks it’s even possible, it’s probably enough of a long shot that she didn’t want to get my—our—hopes up. And since we’re not headed back to Earth right away, it’s a backup plan at best.”

Zaeed filled his glass three-quarters full of some liquid that smelled worse than ryncol and tossed it back in a gulp. His face twisted in a brief expression of disgust, but evidently not enough to stop him from going for a refill. “You considered what kind of shitstorm’ll go down the first time she looks herself up on the goddamn extranet?”

Garrus scrubbed a hand over his face and nodded. “Until she finds out exactly where the gaps are, Dr. Chakwas wants to keep her… isolated.”

“What, a prisoner?” Jack asked. “Fuck, no. Is this the bullshit reason behind why none of us have been allowed to see her?”

 Garrus was spared having to answer by Kaidan saying, “No, I think I understand. Massani’s not wrong. Until we know what the problem is, we run the risk of making things worse by giving her more information than she can handle. Or worse, conflicting information.” He ran both hands through his hair, holding his head for a moment, and Garrus wondered if Kaidan was carrying around a monster of a headache too. Seemed likely. Still, he wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. “For the first time in years, we don’t have a potentially-galaxy-ending menace breathing down our necks. We have the luxury of time. We don’t need to push her to be better before she’s ready. We don’t need to take risks.”

Garrus didn’t think he was imagining the way Kaidan’s eyes found his on this.

“But we’re going to find the bastards who left her alone on a ship in the middle of nowhere, and who thought running with her was a better idea than turning her into proper authorities when she was found,” Garrus said, tamping down on the quaver in his subvocals. “We’re going to follow Dr. Chakwas’ recommendations—which currently means no visitors—and we’re going to go over the _Empire_ like it’s a crime scene, inch by inch. Tali, I want you to—”

“Go through the ship’s computers and see what traces I can find?”

“They’ll be wiped.”

She snorted. “When has that stopped me? I’ll find something.”

Garrus nodded. “Good.” He inhaled deeply, ignoring the pain still throbbing behind his eyes. “I—look, I get that combing for microscopic clues that may not even be there isn’t what most of you signed up for, but I could use the help. We’ve got a day here, maybe two, and then we’ve got to head to the rendezvous back at Mars.”

His words didn’t help with the atmosphere, and he thought Kaidan actually looked a little ill, but when he added, “I wouldn’t ask anyone to go back there if it wasn’t going to be worth it,” they almost looked like they believed him.

#

Because she hadn’t been in the lounge with the rest of the crew, Garrus went looking for his sister. He skirted the medbay, peering through the bank of windows long enough to make sure she wasn’t within.

Shepard, of course, was. She was even awake, sitting mostly upright, once again reading a book. He watched until she flipped a page, never once looking up, and then he turned and walked away again.

He waited for the voice in his head to make some sideways little comment, but it remained silent.

It was probably a bad sign that he was disappointed.

Solana he found in Liara’s old room—the room she’d more or less commandeered because it involved no stairs and was large enough to maneuver her chair around—staring into a glass of the absolutely horrible brandy Shepard had managed to apologetically scrounge for him on one of those last Citadel runs. The bottle sat at Solana’s elbow, mostly-full, exactly how he’d left it after the one or two ill-advised glasses he’d drunk in the early days when the _Normandy_ was still stranded and he was desperate for some kind of relief, even if it was illusory.

He imagined he’d looked then a great deal like his sister looked now.

“I was prepared to dislike her, you know,” Solana said without preamble, holding the glass to the light but not raising it to her mouth. The liquid cast blue shadows against her silvery plates. Above her, several of Liara’s remaining screens showed different material: AI research, information about EDI, reports—all old—about Palaven. And notes about treatment of memory loss. “If not dislike, disapprove, at least. More like Dad than I ever realized, I guess. Even when I knew it was important, I couldn’t quite forgive her for pulling you so effectively into her orbit and out of ours.”

“It was never like—”

She shook her head and he swallowed his words. “When I first… when Mom’s condition was diagnosed, and we knew there was no more pretending it was just a bad day or a bad week or something that would resolve itself, I ran. As far away and as fast as I could. I buried myself in work, in drink and drugs and instant gratification wherever I could find it. I took stupid risks. It probably looked like I had a death wish. Maybe I did.” Solana glanced at him over the rim of her glass. Her expression held no accusation, but it wasn’t quite a comfortable one, either. “And always, there was Naxus. He was my best friend. In the beginning, he was my shoulder to lean on. Later, his was the voice of reason in a world gone totally unreasonable. I was standing on the edge of the precipice, about to jump, and he… he didn’t try to save me, or to stop me, but he was there. He put out a hand and never flinched, no matter how hard I made it for him. And trust me, I made it hard. Eventually, I reached out and took it.”

“Sol, he’s… he’s a fighter. He’ll be there when you get back to Palaven—”

“Don’t you dare, Garrus. Don’t you _dare_ make promises you can’t keep. I don’t want platitudes any more than you do.” She didn’t raise her voice, but then, she didn’t have to. Her subharmonics told him plenty. Instead, she took a deep breath and brought the still-untouched glass to the desk in front of her. Then she folded her hands in her lap. She didn’t look at him. “But you mistake my meaning. This isn’t about him. Or about me. This is about her. And it’s about you.”

She gestured vaguely at the bottle. “Do you want some of this?”

The grating undercurrent of despair stole the humor somewhat as he replied, “Obviously you haven’t tried it.”

“I don’t drink when I’m angry, or sad, or frustrated,” Solana explained, pushing her glass away with the tip of one talon. It slid a few inches, liquid sloshing up over the rim. “Because if I drink when I’m angry, or sad, or frustrated, I feel better. And then I don’t want to stop. In the end, I feel worse. You know. You saw me once at the end of a long, long downward spiral. Yours was the hand that night. Even though I cursed you for it.”

“So why do you have a glass full of liquor in front of you?”

“Because I want to drink it. I’ve never wanted anything quite as much as I want this bottle to be empty.” She sighed. “But this isn’t about that, either. You weren’t happy. You weren’t satisfied. You were doing what Dad wanted you to do, and you were miserable, and we all pretended not to see it because it was better that way. The Vakarian family motto, I told you once, right? If you don’t like it, ignore it and hope it goes away.”

“Or keep getting written up for breaking rules and doing things your own way instead of C-Sec’s, yeah. Because nothing says rebellion like annoying your father with beaurocratic nightmares.”

“For years, that’s who I thought you were. A cocky asshole who needed to do things his way to prove a point—”

“To be fair—”

“Shut up, Garrus, and let me finish. The you who came to Palaven was different. The you who rallied the troops and did his damnedest to prepare people who didn’t want to be prepared? He was different. And even now, beneath this burden of grief, you’re that different man. Stronger. Less posturing. More sure.” Solana raised her eyes to his, and her gaze was so intense he almost had to look away. He didn’t. It hurt. “She didn’t take you away from us. She helped you find yourself. She was your hand, wasn’t she? Like Naxus was mine?”

Garrus flinched, just a little. Just enough. “She’s _scared_ of me. She… said I made her uneasy.”

Solana snorted a harsh, hard little laugh. “Spirits, G, can you blame her?”

He blinked, his mandibles flicking wide in startled dismay. Solana leaned forward, planting one elbow on the desk, gesturing with the other hand to take him in. “You’ve got, what? Almost a foot on her? And that armor’s very good for making you twice your size and menacing, but it’s not exactly benign. You’ve looked perpetually murderous since Earth, and I know you’d only lie if I asked the last time you slept a night through. Exhausted and angry aren’t a friendly look on you. Damn right you’re terrifying. You’re making _me_ uneasy, and I’m your sister.”

He opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. He had to swallow three times to moisten his parched throat. He thought about taking a swig of the awful brandy just to give him his voice back, but knew it wasn’t worth it. “She’s hurt. She’s… I don’t want to make things worse.”

“Hold out your hand, G. Wait for her to take it.” As to prove her point, Solana reached out and gave the hand hanging limp at his side a squeeze. “Most of the time Mom was sick, she didn’t know who I was, but she still reached for my hand when I offered it.” Lifting the hand she still held, she brought it to her cheek in a brief nuzzle. “But _please_ , Garrus, go get some sleep. This chair puts me at such an inconvenient height for trying to knock you out. And I’m pretty sure the doctor’s walking around with a syringe full of turian sedative, just waiting for her moment.”

He chuckled, and then, more seriously, jerked his chin in the direction of the bottle. “You want me to take that with me?”

Solana shook her head. “I’ll be fine. We have to do this, every once in a while. So I remember what I’m fighting for.”

He understood, so he didn’t protest. He merely dropped his brow to hers and whispered a quiet goodnight.

Garrus considered visiting the medbay as Solana’s door closed behind him, but instead he headed for the elevator. In his quarters, he rifled through Shepard’s desk, uncovering a broken datapad, several out-of-date omni-tools, and something that had probably once been a model ship, though he had no idea what make it was meant to be. Something Shepard didn’t like; it was in barely recognizable pieces. Shoved into the bottom drawer, its cover bent, he found a single paper book. 

He made it as far as the door before he remembered Solana’s words. Swiftly, before he could second-guess himself, he replaced his armor with a set of civvies. The black and white ones; she—she’d liked those. Before. Pushing away memories he didn’t have time to relive, he headed for the medbay once again.

Chakwas looked up when he entered, an argument already on her lips. “Won’t be here long,” he said. In his peripheral vision, he saw Shepard tense. Slowly, he crossed the room, stopping when he was just close enough to hold out his offering. Her brows dipped in a peculiar little frown, more puzzled than frightened.

“For when you finish that one,” Garrus said. She reached out and took the book from his hand, and if she was careful not to actually touch him, he pretended not to notice.

It was worth it for the smile. For a moment, her face lit up, bright and unguarded and _happy_. “Oh,” she said, bringing the book close to her chest in the rough approximation of a hug, “ _The Odyssey._ I love this book. I read it over and over after Mindoir, always dreaming I’d somehow set sail for home again, even though I knew home wasn’t there anymore, and wasn’t ever going to be the same.” Her smile tipped sideways, crookedly amused. “I had a hamster named Odysseus once. Do you know hamsters? Fuzzy little rodents. Totally useless. Never could get him to stop hiding whenever I came too close. Loved the little bastard anyway.”

“What happened to him?”

She shrugged, the smile disappearing into discomfort. “I… don’t know. What a surprise.”

Garrus smiled the gentlest smile he knew how to give, and Shepard didn’t flinch. “Then maybe he’s on his way home.”

“He’s probably dead,” Shepard said. But then she raised her chin and some of the brightness returned to her features and she smiled again. “But I think I like your version better. Thank you. Uh. Garrus.”

He inclined his head.

And then he bid her goodnight, and instead of pacing the ship or walking more rounds or checking the main battery, he retreated to his room, dropped an extra helping of food into Odysseus’ cage, and he slept.


	18. Hold on Tight

A full complement waited for him when Garrus made his way to the mess the next morning, most silently nursing their energizing beverages of choice and picking at uninspiring breakfast rations. He knew better than to speak to any of them this early. Kaidan nodded a greeting, and Jack glowered—practically a cheery hello, from that quarter. Javik, whom Garrus had never actually seen eat, sat alone, arms folded and eyes closed. Grunt, at the next table, looked a little like he wanted to take advantage of the situation, but Garrus glared and he subsided. Zaeed was the only one talking, regaling Cortez and Traynor with _everyone died but me_ war stories. Traynor looked horrified, and Cortez a little like he was taking notes. 

Garrus spared a thought for how wrong it was that they’d all seemed cheerier when desperately trying to save the galaxy on missions deemed all-but-suicidal, but at least the pall of the day before was no longer quite so heavy.

He swung through the galley, liberating a handful of dextro ration bars, and by the time he turned back to the tables Tali had already shifted down so he could sit next to her.

He gestured toward Solana’s room. “Have you seen my sister yet this morning?”

Tali leaned forward, propping her head against one hand. “Funny you should ask. She’s in the medbay. You know, where none of the rest of us have been allowed to go.”

Garrus shook his head, unwrapping a bar and waving in the direction of his own legs. “Making sure she had someone competent looking after her was about eighty percent of the reason I wanted her to come along.”

“And the other twenty?”

Garrus saw Solana going head to head with the bottle of turian brandy and said, “Is there anything worse than a skilled person being treated like they’re no longer valuable because of something irrelevant and out of their control?” He swallowed half the bar in one bite and grimaced at the taste. “Come on, Tali. Use her. If nothing else, she’s turian. She’ll take orders.”

Tali chuckled. “As well as you do?”

“She’s a _good_ turian.”

Pushing the second ration bar toward him, Tali said, “Nice try. Shepard said she saw generals saluting you.”

“Pretty sure the Reaper Advisor position’s been made redundant.”

Tali didn’t say anything right away, merely nodding and leaning on her forearms. He ate the rations and contemplated a third bar. Finally, just as he was about to rise and call things to order, Tali reached out and stopped him with a touch. “I don’t know anything about being a turian,” she said, “but you’re good at what you do. People listen to you. People are willing to _follow_ you. And no, before you argue, it’s not just because of Shepard. I know it. Keelah, Shepard knows it; she’s spoken to me about it. If your people don’t see the value in that, they need to rethink what they value.”

Garrus tried not to remember Victus saying _if I was the best they had left on Menae, you can’t be more than a couple of steps away from my place_ , but his subharmonics were strained instead of amused when he replied,“You’re only saying that because you like me.”

“Ha. I put up with you.”

Garrus’ mandibles flicked into a brief smile, but his words were serious. “Then put up with my sister. For my sake, if nothing else.”

The cant of Tali’s mask definitely equated a scowl, but her voice held a hint of laughter when she said, “Fine. But if she touches my drive core—”

“I’ll let you do what I’d do to her if she messed with the Thanix.”

“Acceptable.” Tali sighed, rolling her shoulders. “Shepard’s made politicians of all of us, Garrus. Trust me, they’re not letting you go anywhere. Doesn’t mean it has to be a prison sentence.”

Garrus shook his head and pocketed the third bar of rations for later. “The fact that I think it _does_ is what makes me a bad turian.”

#

Tali and Traynor set to work scouring the ship’s computer and disabling the various still-functioning sensor-jamming devices. Grunt and Zaeed he assigned to tethered extravehicular activity, on the off chance any hastily ejected material remained in the vicinity. Javik, Kaidan, and Jack went to scour the rest of the _Empire_. They’d done a relatively thorough search when looking for Shepard in the first place, but Javik, Garrus hoped, might be able to pick up something—anything—about the people who’d taken her by the traces they left behind.

Wishing he were accompanied by a team of crime scene techs, Garrus returned to the room where they’d found Shepard. He’d told Kaidan to bring Javik later, when he was finished, but this part he wanted to do alone. He stood in the doorway a long time, surveying the scene. They’d left enough behind here to keep up the ruse of habitation, doubtless for Shepard’s benefit. He imagined the cabinets would be empty, and the lack of desk or chairs or caregiver’s bed was telling.

Shepard’s bed remained, of course. The sheets were still rumpled where she’d lain, and the skeletons of equipment, now dark and quiet, loomed on the fringes like eerie guards. 

He spared a moment to regret how thoroughly they’d tampered with the scene in the process of removing Shepard from it, and then he snorted. If nothing else, any inadmissible evidence could be submitted by Alenko, with the door-opening stamp of Spectre approval.

“First you have to figure out what the crime is,” Garrus said aloud, his voice echoing strangely in the silent room. “And you have to apprehend a perpetrator.”

 _Irony in action_ , he thought with a touch of bitterness. He was more than happy to follow C-Sec protocol on this one, down to the letter. He just didn’t think it would reveal enough.

If his father were here, he knew exactly what he’d say: _it reveals plenty, son. You’re dealing with people who knew how to get away clean. Don’t let them._

 _Easier said than done_ , Garrus thought, flicking the audio on his visor to music just distracting enough to keep his thoughts on the scene in front of him and not on all the things still ahead.

The room had no windows, of course, and the vent access revealed nothing out of the ordinary. He ran scans on every device. The cabinets, contrary to his belief, held medical supplies, though nothing to indicate where they’d been purchased or stolen from. Opening a carton of syringes, he scowled when he noticed how many of the original quantity were missing, and made a note to speak with Chakwas about it.

When he searched the bed, running his gloved hands carefully over the sheets, he found several of Shepard’s red hairs trapped on the pillow. He nearly crowed when he lifted that pillow and found a single dark hair, long and human and definitely not Shepard’s, beneath it.

He was just lowering it into a sealed container when an incoming communication dimmed his music and Joker’s voice said, “You need to get back here.”

“Can it wait, Joker? I’m in the middle of—”

He hadn’t recognized the desperation for what it was when the pilot first spoke, but there was no mistaking it now. “Garrus. You need to get back here. _Now_.”

He was already up and running before he replied, “Is it Shepard?”

“The doc’s locked down the medbay. Shepard’s having some kind of—fuck, I don’t even know. Seizure? I can hear her screaming over the comms.”

“Patch me through.”

“You don’t want to—”

“Patch me through now, Joker, and tell everyone else to back the hell away.”

Garrus had seen Shepard angry; he’d seen her grieving; he’d seen her on the brink of what she’d truly believed would be her death, and yet he had never, _never_ heard her sound so terrified, so upset, so out of her mind. He could barely make out her words, and the jamming technology Tali and Traynor evidently hadn’t finished disabling was still causing the reception to cut out as he moved, but the quality of Shepard’s voice was enough to speed his steps. Kaidan called out after him as he barreled toward the airlock door, but he didn’t pause.

“—Won’t… not your… won’t let you—not again—”

He cursed Cerberus’ removal of the easier-access stairs between the CIC and crew decks as he waited for the elevator.

“—Not my doctor,” Shepard shouted. “I know my doctors and you’re not one of them. Get me out of here! Get me away from here! This isn’t right. _This isn’t right._ I don’t belong here. _I’m not supposed to be here!_ ” Her voice changed. Dropped. Shifted until she sounded strangely young. “Where… where are my parents? Don’t come any closer! I want to see my parents. Wait. That’s… that’s not…”

The red barrier of the door’s lock thwarted his first two attempts to hack it, and he was thinking about resorting to a mine when the mechanism chirped and the light flickered green.

Shepard turned to face him as soon as the door opened, and as she did, Chakwas, one arm hanging limp and blood streaming from an obviously broken nose, moved toward her again.

_Come on, Shepard. You gotta watch your six if I’m not there. You know that._

“Stop,” he ordered. Chakwas froze. Shepard spat, and snarled, “You’re not touching me. None of you are—” Mid-sentence, she went completely rigid, her eyes rolling back in her head. The keening scream torn from her throat turned his blood to ice, but he forced himself to move, to cross the room in several long strides. Shepard clutched a syringe in one hand, her knuckles white around it. As he arrived at her bedside, the seizure ended, leaving Shepard limp and sweating against her pillows. A smear of blood marked her brow, starkly red against her skin’s unnatural paleness.

“What the hell—”

“I was just going to give her painkillers,” Chakwas explained, her swollen nose stealing the usual crispness from her accent. “She kept crying out and shifting in her sleep, and I—”

“The syringe?”

Chakwas nodded and then winced. “Painkillers, as I said. She went limp. I thought she was—and then she grabbed my wrist. Shattered it. Near-ripped the shoulder from the socket. Head-butted me. She shouldn’t have been able to—before she could do more, she began seizing, as you witnessed. It lasted only a few moments, and when she came to she grabbed the syringe I’d dropped. I couldn’t get near. You… you heard. This is not merely amnesia borne of a trauma, Garrus. It cannot be.”

Shepard’s eyelids fluttered, and she turned her head, groaning. A bead of blood welled on her split bottom lip.

“Make it stop,” she begged. “Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it end.” Her eyes found his, damp and so wide the bloodshot whites were visible around the entirety of her iris. “Garrus.” She said his name like she knew it, and the faint clink of the syringe as it dropped from her hand seemed too loud. With the hand that had held it, she reached for him, closing her fingers tightly around his. “Garrus, please. This isn’t living. Make it stop. Make it—” Another scream stole her words and her back arched until he heard the bones creak. Her hand still held his, and he could feel the pressure of the seizure trying to break his fingers.

“Her bones,” Chakwas breathed, almost too quietly for him to hear over Shepard’s wail. “Of course they don’t heal. They break over and over again. Oh, God. Oh, God, what have they done to her?”

Garrus ignored the doctor. When the attack ended, he bent close. Shepard didn’t flinch or pull away, her eyes locked on his. Her tongue darted out to drag the bead of blood from her lips; another took its place. “Shepard,” he said, “who did this to you?”

“Please, don’t make me go back.” Tears spilled from her eyes and down her cheeks. Garrus didn’t think she realized she was crying. Her voice was impossibly rough, impossibly hoarse. Her fingers gripped his hand impossibly hard. “I don’t know what’s real when I’m there, Garrus, I don’t know what’s—”

But she hadn’t been watching her six. She’d been watching him. And he’d been watching her. Before she could finish her plea, her eyes slid shut as the drugs Chakwas had slipped into her IV pulled her under.

Furious, his head throbbing with rage so sudden and intense it made the edges of his vision black, he snarled, “ _Why?_ You heard her! What the fuck are you—”

Chakwas lifted her chin and didn’t balk, interrupting, “Her heart couldn’t take it. Listen to the machines, Garrus. She’s one seizure away from heart failure.”

He didn’t have to be a doctor to recognize the danger his visor was warning him of. Even now, as the drugs took hold, Shepard’s vitals were off the charts. If she’d been anyone but Shepard, her heart would have given out already.

In her induced sleep, Shepard’s hand still held his, her fingers twitching as she fought whatever shadows it was her dreams threw against her. 

“She recognized me.”

“And she will again.” Chakwas closed her eyes, and this time her cheeks were the ones streaked with the thin tracks of tears. “Forgive me, Garrus. I know—”

“No,” he replied, anger gone as suddenly as it had come, leaving him scraped out, hollow and numb. “You did the right thing. Of course you did.”

Shepard murmured something, and her brow creased. He ran the thumb of his free hand across the heavy furrow, smoothing it out and wiping away the blood smear left by Chakwas’ broken nose in the same gesture.

 _Forgive the insubordination_ , he thought, breathing deeply to still the pounding of his own heart. _Your boyfriend has an order for you._

She turned into the pressure of his hand, but did not come back to him.


	19. Each In His Prison

By the time Shepard’s vitals had crept back into the deep, regular pattern of medically-induced sleep, a crowd had gathered in the mess. Garrus could hear them talking amongst themselves, even though they were trying to be quiet. Sure enough, when he exited the medbay, a dozen faces swung around to look at him. Almost the entire ground team had returned. Cortez, Traynor, and a couple of the other Alliance crew huddled at one table. Breather helmets tossed aside, Zaeed and Grunt still wore their EVA-gear. Even Joker had come down from the cockpit and was sitting next to Solana, staring hard at the backs of his hands. 

The careful steadiness with which Solana watched him spoke of concern, tinged with insight he wished she didn’t have. Garrus wanted to look away, but did not. He flicked his mandibles ever so slightly—Shepard might have known it was a warning, but he didn’t think anyone else was familiar enough with the subtleties of turian expressions to pick up on it. Refusing to back down, Solana held his gaze just long enough to border on insolent before dipping her head. The apprehension did not quite disappear, but she held her tongue. For now.

Javik, Garrus noted, was the only one missing. He wondered if it was a good sign or a very bad one. 

Kaidan rose as soon as Garrus’ glance slid his way. “I know you’ve got some field-medic training,” Garrus said. “Chakwas needs her wrist splinted. She doesn’t think she has a concussion; I’m not so sure. She’ll fill you in.”

Garrus didn’t wait for him to leave before sweeping his gaze across all the assembled faces. “What did you find?”

“Nothing,” Grunt muttered. “Not even a block of compacted trash.”

Garrus nodded, having expected as much, and yet was still unable to halt the swell of disappointment. 

“Sam and I are making progress,” Tali offered. “We’ve disabled all the jamming tech, and we recovered several packets of encrypted data.”

“I think they might be messages,” Traynor added. Normally something like this would have made her excited, but Garrus heard only weariness in her voice, and worry. Her eyes kept flicking past him to rest on the bank of medbay windows beyond. “I’ll know more when we’ve broken the encryption. And we’re still looking for more. They were thorough, but not… not thorough enough.”

Disappointment was replaced by a flood of hope. And something darker; colder. After witnessing what he’d witnessed with Shepard, a headshot from a distance seemed too kind a fate.

He didn’t need the Shepard-voice in his head to broadcast her disapproval; he knew exactly what it would look like, sound like. He’d seen it before. Hell, he’d give his left arm to be seeing it again right now.

 _Talk to me when it sounds like bones breaking over and over and over again_ , he thought at the absent voice. _Talk to me when it sounds like the voice of the woman you love pleading to die. This isn’t Sidonis, Shepard. Not even close._

Aloud, he said none of this. “Good work. Where’s Javik? Did he—”

“Went to his room,” Jack interrupted. “We found fuck all when we looked around, but then he nearly lost his fucking mind when we went into Shepard’s—the room where we found Shepard.” She leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest and giving Garrus the kind of defiant glare that usually preceded some kind of explosive act of biotics. “You gonna tell us what the hell happened in there?”

_Garrus. Garrus, please._

_She recognized me._

“She had some kind of a seizure—”

“Some kind?” Joker snapped, eyes flashing beneath the brim of his hat as he raised his head. His beard had grown unkempt, but did little to hide the gauntness of his cheeks. “It sounded like she was being _tortured._ And not nice, mild, batarian prison camp type torture, either, oh no.”

“You think I know more than you do?” Garrus swept his hand back, gesturing at the medbay without looking at it. “You think that was easier for me to hear than it was for you?”

Joker’s hands clenched into fists. “It’s not _your_ fault she is where she is, though. It’s mine.”

Garrus sucked in a surprised little breath. Tali murmured, “Keelah,” under her breath and reached out, but Joker jerked his hands away before she could comfort him. 

“Twice,” Joker said, his voice breaking on the word. “First time I should’ve followed a good order. Second time I should’ve ignored a bad. Doesn’t matter though, does it? It’s on me, but she’s the one who pays the price.”

_Make it end._

“Joker—”

“We could’ve been on the ground, looking for her,” the pilot insisted, walking the edge of hysteria. All around them, people began to speak to each other in low, worried voices. “We could’ve got to her first instead of wasting almost a month in that goddamned jungle. These assholes would never have touched her.”

“No,” Garrus said, and the faint murmuring of people talking amongst themselves stilled into silence so absolute it was only broken by the hum of the ship and the barely audible rise and fall of the voices in the medbay. “This isn’t the time for wringing hands and pointing fingers. You want to feel like crap for things you can’t change? Go right ahead. But you won’t be doing it on the flight deck of this ship.”

Joker’s jaw dropped, and he half-rose from his seat. His cheeks flushed hot beneath the ragged beard. “You can’t—this is my—”

“I can,” Garrus said. “I will. This isn’t a negotiation. The bastards who did this to Shepard are still out there, and I intend to find them and make them pay. Anyone has a problem with how we’re doing it, you’re welcome to take the _Empire_ back to Earth and complain to someone who cares.”

Solana spoke into the heavy silence. “Make them pay? Or bring them to justice?”

“Same thing,” Grunt muttered, beating his fists together.

“Kowloon class ships are easy to navigate,” he replied.

On the edge of his vision, Tali shook her head.

Solana’s response didn’t require words. She turned her face, and the angle of the tilt and the _I’m disappointed, Garrus_ essence of the gesture belonged so entirely to their mother he almost took a step backward. Hell. He almost blurted _I’m sorry, Mom; I won’t do it again_ before he could swallow the words.

She said nothing. He took a deep breath slowly; released it twice as slow.

The moment passed.

“Anyone else?” he asked. No one spoke up. He knew Tali was uneasy, and expected her to voice that opinion later, but she’d fall in line. It was Shepard, after all. Zaeed looked dangerously pleased; Garrus would have to watch that, too. “Good. Dismissed. Joker, you’re on a day’s mandatory rest; then we leave for Mars. If I have to eat and sleep, so do you, and you’re behind on both. If I see you in the cockpit, I will put you on the _Empire_ and lock the airlock door behind you.”

“Aye, sir.” It was the most grudging acquiescence Garrus had ever heard, but it was acquiescence nonetheless. Counted for something.

Garrus didn’t linger. He glanced once more into the medbay to be certain Kaidan was holding his own, spared a moment to let his visor’s readout reassure him Shepard was still safely unconscious, and then he strode toward the Engineering deck.

#

Garrus knew something was wrong when Javik didn’t immediately complain about his presence. No _in my cycle we waited for the knock to be answered_ or _you are more bothersome than the asari, turian, always with your questions._ Instead, the Prothean leaned heavily over his water table, and barely raised his head when Garrus entered.

“You wish to know what I have sensed,” Javik said without preamble, his accent somehow thicker, his words slow and touched with a tremor of emotion so unnerving Garrus didn’t want to put a name to it. “I would… spare you. But I know you will not allow it.”

Garrus swallowed past the knot of his own feelings, and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms, his gaze unflinching. Javik looked up long enough to nod, and then he turned back to the water again.

“It was…” Javik put a hand to his head, and Garrus didn’t know what was more disconcerting: the unfamiliar posture, hunched and horrified, or that the Prothean was, evidently, at a loss for words. “The commander, her mind is orderly. For a primitive. But on that ship? In that room? It is chaos.” Javik dropped his arm again abruptly and shook his hands out as if they pained him. Then he began to pace. Three times he walked the length of the room and back, never once lifting his gaze from the floor.

That, Garrus decided, was the _most_ disconcerting thing: Javik was so preoccupied he was letting his guard down. Except in battle, when it was unavoidable because of Shepard’s preferred tactics, the Prothean had never once turned his back to him.

“In… in my cycle,” Javik began, haltingly, after the third pass, “we were familiar with the indoctrinated. We were better at detecting… interference.”

“I know,” Garrus said, trying to keep the impatience—the impatience and the dismay—from his subvocals. Not that it mattered; Javik could probably smell it on him. Or sense it. Or whatever inexplicable thing it was he did. “I met Vigil on Ilos. And Vendetta on Thessia. Both were programmed to sense indoctrinated presences.” He paused, waiting for Javik to continue. When he didn’t, Garrus pressed, “You… you don’t seriously think Shepard’s indoctrinated?”

“No, turian,” Javik retorted, with a hint of his usual derision, but not nearly enough for it to be comforting. “The Reapers are gone. It is not indoctrination. I know indoctrination.”

“I’m sensing an ‘and yet’ here, Javik. I don’t like it.”

Javik brought up a fist and, for a moment, flickers of his biotic energy danced around the clenched fingers. A moment later, the Prothean opened his hand and instead of a smoking hole in the far wall, the flickers of green light merely died. It was almost anti-climactic.

When Javik began to speak, however, Garrus shuddered at the undercurrent in the Prothean’s voice. “It is not indoctrination, what was done to her, but it is not natural. The room… turian, be glad you cannot see things as I do. Even now, I hear her screaming.”

_Please don’t make me go back._

“Who’s behind it?”

“I do not know,” Javik said. “Her pain… it obscured all else. The other presences are the faintest whispers. Her memories became muddled, layers and layers of inexplicable experiences, each with no connection to either the thought before or the thought after. In that room, some things are true. Others are false. In that room she is a child, a young woman; hopeful and hopeless. In that room she is burning.”

Javik plunged his hands into the water once again, as if they, too, were on fire. “I would do more if I could, turian. It is not just, the way they have dealt with her. She is a warrior, deserving of a warrior’s battle and, if necessary, a warrior’s death. Whatever their purpose, it stinks of deceit. It is not indoctrination, but, like the tricks the Reapers used, it is tastes of duplicity, and I will see vengeance done for it.”

_I intend to find them and make them pay._

“We’ll… bring them to justice,” Garrus said, echoing his sister’s words. 

Javik smiled a cruel, tight smile. “You may call it what you wish, turian. The result is the same. They will die.”

To distract himself—from protesting, from agreeing—Garrus fished out the container holding the single hair he’d rescued from the ship. “Can you get a read on this?”

Javik regarded it for several long seconds, his eyes blinking slowly. Then, carefully, he washed his hands again before reaching for it. Garrus had a hard time reading the Prothean’s expressions at the best of times, but he was certain he’d never seen anything quite like this one. It was not battle-rage or bloodlust or even the flash of vengeance he’d witnessed just a moment before. It was not arrogance or dismissal. “Like everything else in that room, it is drenched with Shepard’s memories. Chaotic. Disjointed. It is… strange. Through the commander’s filter, I sense… hope. A human woman. The commander brings her to mind again and again. In her memory this dark-haired woman wears armor. Pink and white. The commander feels regret. And… grief. But I do not know this woman; her essence is unfamiliar to me.”

“Pink and white armor? You don’t… you can’t mean Williams?” Garrus shook his head, peering at the dark hair still held between Javik’s fingers. “That’s not possible. She’s been dead for years.”

Here a little of Javik’s usual disgust returned. “I did not say it was this human called Williams. Only that she is what Shepard’s embattled mind fixated on. Perhaps it was only a resemblance. Perhaps it was nothing at all.”

“Something familiar when everything else wasn’t.” Garrus sighed, once again disappointed. It wasn’t as though he’d been imagining Javik taking a taste or a feel or a sniff and suddenly coming up with a name and convenient coordinates to go along with it, but…

But Williams was dead, and Shepard’s tormentors had broken her so well they’d managed to cover their tracks even in her memory, even down to the essence only a damned Prothean could sense.

“Turian,” Javik added, placing the hair back in its container and holding it out for Garrus to take. “Thoughts of you remained clear longer than the rest.”

“Uh. Thanks,” Garrus said, stricken, when what he really meant was _if only I’d come sooner._


	20. Bringing Rain

_She is five years old, and she is in big, big trouble._

_She’s supposed to be at home, safe in her bedroom, taking a nap. She isn’t. She’s at the playground by the school even though her parents said, “No, sweetheart, not today,” when she asked them to take her._

_The swings aren’t as fun without someone to push her. Even kicking as hard as she can, she can barely make herself sway, and it smells like it’s going to rain. At home, where it’s warm and dry and she’s supposed to be asleep in her bed, her papa is probably finishing up work on someone’s broken equipment, and her mama’s probably out in the garden, smiling because her plants need the watering. It’s been so dry. They’ll come inside when it starts raining, she knows, and they’ll stand side by side in the kitchen scrubbing the grease and dirt from their hands, and then they’ll go upstairs to check on her—they always check on her—and she won’t be there. They’ll be mad and they’ll probably be scared. She should’ve thought about it before. It was stupid not to._

_Even though they’ll look here first, she can’t bring herself to leave. She kicks harder. The swing moves a few inches. Her feet don’t touch the ground._

_“Hey,” says a voice, and she almost falls out of the swing. Another little girl sits next to her, even though she’s sure the second seat was just empty. She doesn’t recognize the new girl, whose dark hair is held back by a pink ribbon, and who’s wearing a ruffled white dress prettier than anything she’s ever seen before. It’s even prettier than her mama’s yellow dress, the one she got married in, the one she sometimes wears to dance in the living room with papa when they think she’s asleep. The other girl’s shoes are black and shiny. One sock is pulled up to her knee; the other is bunched around her ankle._

_She stares at the bunched-up sock because it’s the only thing about the other girl that isn’t perfect as a princess in a storybook._

_“Hi,” she says, suddenly shy._

_The other girl kicks hard several times and swings high, almost as high as if Papa were here pushing. The wind makes her hair float out around her head, pulling the pink ribbon loose, and she laughs._

_She is about to laugh, too, when a drop of rain splashes against her cheek, cold enough to make her flinch._

_“You’re not supposed to be here,” the girl says._

_She hangs her head, gazing down at her feet. Her shoes are scuffed, and she thinks they used to be white, but now they’re just dirty grey with a faded blue stripe down the side. “I know. I’m gonna be in big trouble.”_

_“You’re already in big trouble, Skipper.”_

_She frowns, a weird feeling creeping around in her stomach like she’s about to be sick. Swallowing hard, she says, “That’s not my name.”_

_The girl in the white and pink stops swinging and turns in her seat, her hands clutching the chains so hard her knuckles turn pale. “I used to call you that. Don’t you remember?”_

_Lifting her chin, she glares. “I never even met you before.”_

_The girl sighs and flings herself off her swing, the sand puffing up in a cloud around her shiny shoes. Her dress is going to get dirty, but she doesn’t seem to care. Both socks fall down around her ankles. “They worked you over good, didn’t they?”_

_The girl sounds so sad she wants to jump down from the swing and run away, pretend she never saw the white dress or pink ribbon or bunched-up sock. She wants to run home and crawl into her bed and put her head under the pillow and wait for her mama to come sing her lullabies in her off-key voice. She doesn’t._

_She knows she’s not supposed to talk to strangers, but this girl makes her think of warm things, home things, and she almost doesn’t seem like a stranger at all. It’s the sadness that scares her, not the girl._

_So, instead of running away, she only clutches the chains of her swing tighter and says, “Your ribbon fell off.”_

_The girl reaches down and tugs up both her sagging socks, and then, smiling, pushes a hand through her heavy hair. The ribbon is caught on the edge of the grass, already damp from the falling rain. Still, she crosses the sand and picks up the scrap of silk, running it through her fingers. Then she holds it out, its ends swaying gently in the breeze. “You want it? Maybe it’ll help.”_

_She shrugs because she wants it so badly she can taste it, but Mama always says she should be polite and not be too loud and to always try and control her excitement, even when it’s hard._

_“It’s okay,” says the other girl, coming closer. “Here. It’s a bit dirty, but it’ll still hold your hair back.”_

_“Okay.”_

_The other girl’s hands are gentle as they pull the ends of the pink ribbon into a neat bow at the top of her head. When she’s finished, she crouches down a bit, until they’re eye to eye. “You want me to give you a push?”_

_The squirmy feeling comes back to her stomach, and the running feeling makes her feet itch. She shakes her head and thinks maybe the ribbon’s tied too tight, because her head aches._

_“Scared, Skipper? That’s not like you.”_

_“You don’t know me.”_

_The other girl presses the tips of her fingertips very softly to her cheek. Her skin is warm and dry. Safe. She sounds like a grownup when she says, “I know you better than you know yourself.”_

_“I’m not scared,” she says, defiant. And maybe a little scared. “Sometimes my papa pushes me so high it’s like I’m flying.”_

_With a light tap of finger to nose, the girl says, “Flying’s a good feeling. Want to go for it?”_

_“Yeah,” she says, sitting up straight and turning her face forward. Her nose wrinkles when she catches the smell of really strong flowers, but as soon as the girl in the white dress gives her the first push, the wind pulls the scent right out of the air. The girl is stronger than she looks, and soon the swing flies higher and higher and higher, hitching at the top before swooping back down again. The rain is still cold on her face, but she hardly feels it because the wind is singing in her ears and at the top of the arc she feels like she could do anything._

_“I’ll see you all when you get back!” the girl in the white dress cries._

_She knows it’s not true. They both know it’s not true._

_“Hey, Skipper.” Warm hands find her back, giving her one more solid push. “Jump off when you hit the top! And don’t forget to breathe!”_

_She doesn’t know if she can do it. She’s up so high, and she feels so small, but the warmth of the hands on her back remains and just before she starts to drop again, she unclenches her hands from around the swing’s chains, and she leaps._

#

Even though Liara would never have risked compromising their situation by sending messages over unsecured channels, Garrus couldn’t quite shake a lingering feeling of unease as days passed without contact from her. Or Hackett. Or his father, for that matter. Traynor gave him an apologetic frown every time he asked for a report, but in a week of steady disappointments, silence from Earth was small in comparison. 

DNA analysis on the hair proved as unenlightening as speaking with Javik about it. Chakwas had looked at him like he needed to be sedated when he asked her to run the DNA against Williams’, but of course it hadn’t matched. 

That was the problem: DNA wasn’t much use if you didn’t have a comparison sample, and with communications in disarray across the galaxy, it wasn’t as simple as running things against Alliance files or colony rosters or public health databases. All they could tell was that whomever the hair belonged to either wasn’t located in the sectors of public databases they could reach, or their information had been lost. Or, more worrying, had been erased. Perhaps when they returned to Earth, Liara might have other resources, but he wasn’t about to transmit anything so sensitive. Not if they were being watched. Not if they were being listened to.

Tali and Traynor pulled several packets of information from the wiped computers—a triumph in and of itself—but everything was so heavily encrypted they had yet to learn anything other than yes, they had information and no, they had no idea what it was. Garrus spent more than a few hours attempting every trick he had in his not-insignificant arsenal, but whatever secret the _Empire_ ’s computers held remained firmly locked.

He missed EDI. He hadn’t quite realized how much he took her for granted until she was gone, leaving an AI-shaped hole he’d never have imagined existing before. Solana insisted she was still making progress, still trying to make sense of Cerberus’ science, but it was like the DNA. Without knowing what had caused the malfunction, it was nearly impossible to imagine finding a fix. She had some theories about rebuilding from scratch, but he didn’t hold out much hope for a rebuilt EDI to be… EDI.

And all the while, he tried not to think about obvious parallels. Mostly, he failed.

Shepard slept. Day in and day out, Chakwas kept her deeply under, monitoring every breath, every fluctuation in brain activity or heart rate. She didn’t seize in her sleep, at least, and her bones were almost healed, but the doctor admitted she was no closer to understanding what had been done to her.

“I am a physician, Garrus,” she snapped peevishly, arm still healing and bruises from the broken nose now fading to yellow on the edges. “I daresay a good one, but my abilities are finite. This is not purely medical, and I am not Mordin Solus. Let me heal her body; then we may focus on the rest.”

So they turned to Mars, and to the hope that Miranda would be there waiting for them. Even knowing how slim the chance was—Miranda, as best he knew, had been running dangerous solo missions toward the end of the war, and hadn’t been heard from since—he couldn’t completely dismiss his hope.

_That’s your fault, Shepard. You and your damned hope. I was doing just fine without it._

He decided against bringing the entire squad planetside again. In the end, he stuck to Shepard’s standard three-person team, and asked Grunt and Javik to suit up, covering his bases with biotics and brute force. Alenko he left in charge, with orders to retreat if things went wrong. The man nodded, looking haunted, while Joker, behind him in the cockpit, remained obstinately silent.

It was a very different kind of ride down in the Kodiak this time, without all the pushing and shoving and expectant tension. The hold seemed empty with only the three of them to fill it, and too quiet. When Cortez cleared his throat, Garrus nearly jumped.

“Picking up a single fighter, sir. Not registered with the Alliance, and definitely fitted with jamming tech.”

Garrus snorted. “Sounds paranoid enough to be Miranda. Bring us in slow, Cortez. Class-F can outmaneuver us, but we’ve got better firepower.”

Cortez’s low chuckle was wry. “Careful there, sir, or I’ll come into the battery and start talking to you about what you know best.”

Behind them, Grunt laughed, a single sharp bark, and Garrus’ mandibles flicked into a smile. “Yeah, yeah. Point taken.”

“She’s transmitting a parley message. Basically the equivalent of a white flag.”

Garrus leaned forward and sighed. “So, either friendly or a trap.”

“They probably feel the same way about us, sir.”

“Let them know we’re here to talk. We’ll be prepared for the worst.”

“So, same as usual.”

“Reapers hardly ever wanted to talk. And Cerberus was even less chatty. But yeah.” Garrus clapped Cortez lightly on the shoulder before heading back to his seat.

The Kodiak landed on the hospital roof without enduring fire, and Garrus was the first to disembark, unarmed. He knew Grunt was ready with his shotgun, and Javik already glowed faintly with biotics, but neither, it appeared would be necessary.

A moment after they landed, an asari climbed down from the fighter’s cockpit. Even if she hadn’t been wearing the skin-tight red and black armor he was accustomed to, he’d have recognized her ageless, lethal grace anywhere.

“ _Samara_?”

A very faint smile cracked her mask of cool serenity and said she heard the surprise in his subharmonics very clearly. “Garrus,” she said. “It is good to see you. I wish the circumstances were different ones.”

“What are you doing here?”

Never one for extraneous movement, she inclined her head slightly. Even with the appearance of ease, he knew very well she could have killed him with a thought, and probably taken the rest of them without so much as breaking a sweat. A weapon honed for a thousand years. Hell, he didn’t think even Javik could compare. “Forgive the necessary subterfuge. Our mutual acquaintance has reason to distrust communications. She could not discover the present location of Ms. Lawson. She did find me. When she explained what she could, I wished to offer aid.”

He had grown so accustomed to disappointment that this one hardly registered, and wasn’t sure if that was a bad or good sign. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but… I need a scientist. Hell, I _need_ Miranda. She’s the only one who—”

“Not the only one,” Samara said, and the gravity in her tone made his plates itch.

Samara reached out and tapped the door’s locking mechanism with the side of her fist. When the hatch slid open, Garrus was left staring at a smirking, dark-haired woman _decidedly_ not Miranda Lawson, whom he’d last seen not taking the bullet to the head he’d gladly have supplied. At least, he noted, she appeared to be wearing a prisoner’s jumpsuit and was no longer wearing purloined Alliance blues.

“Not who you expected?” Maya Brooks—or whatever her current name was—smiled her cutting, devious smile and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Yes, well. Beggars can’t be choosers, can they?”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Garrus muttered.

Brooks sighed. Her arms and ankles were bound, but she wore the imprisonment as if it were merely a mild inconvenience. “What can I say? I’m like a cockroach.” She blinked at him, all wide-eyed, false innocence. “Or don’t you have those on Palaven? Still, they must’ve made their way to Omega.”

Garrus turned away, prepared to head back to the Kodiak, and the _Normandy_ , and his own futile search for answers. 

“Garrus.” Samara managed to sound calm and utterly disapproving all at the same time, and he paused. “I would not be here if I did not believe this the best option available to us. I will act without hesitation should she… misbehave. She knows this.”

“She does,” Brooks added. “And since I’m the only other living creature who knows half what you need to know about Shepard, I think you’d better swallow your pride, don’t you?”

He ignored her, meeting Samara’s gaze. “Doesn’t cutting deals with criminals violate the tenets of your Code?”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “Nor is there justice in what has been done to Shepard. This is not a compromise, Garrus. She will never again go free.”

“But I won’t be dead, either,” Brooks added. “Funny what kind of motivator that can be.”

It took Garrus mere heartbeats to cross the sandy pavement, drawing his pistol and pressing the barrel to Brooks’ brow, just between her eyes. “I will kill you if you hurt her.”

Brooks merely smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “I did wonder if she’d neutered you, Archangel. I suppose I’m pleased to see she hasn’t.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Garrus snapped. Samara watched him, her expression betraying nothing, and he stilled the urge to cold cock Brooks with the butt of his pistol. “She’s never left alone. Not to eat, not to sleep, not to go the damned bathroom.” He lowered his gun, holstering it again. “I’ve got a list of medical supplies to find for the doctor. We’ll talk more on the ship, but I need to know if you can work with me on this, Samara.”

“Justice must be done,” she replied.

“Fair enough,” he said. “But if your Code needs me dead, you need to put it on hold until the bastards who did this to Shepard are taken care of.”

Again she inclined her head, but he noticed—and he knew she was _aware_ he noticed—she did not quite agree with him.

“And we’re all a big, happy family once again,” Brooks sing-songed.

“Does your Code object to gagging her?” Garrus drawled.

“It does not,” Samara replied, and he was gratified to sense some of the tension between them eased—and even more pleased, still, to see Brooks flinch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a brief note: updates may be more sporadic than usual for the next three weeks, as I'll be away from home. I promise not to leave you hanging, but I doubt I'll be able to stick to my usual schedule.


	21. Speak to Me

After nearly two weeks aboard the _Normandy_ , the only thing Solana could be certain of was that she was never going to understand it, not really. It wasn’t a matter of layout—even with the changes, she still saw the bones of the SR-1 underneath the larger, flashier skin Cerberus had built for it. Nor was it a matter of technical design: she’d read every available bit of text, and had let herself learn hands-on as much as her strained detente with Tali’Zorah allowed.

Beneath all that, though, was something different, the kind of thing turians called a Spirit, and that was the piece she couldn’t quite make sense of. Perhaps because she wasn’t part of it. The _Normandy_ crew couldn’t be more different each from the other if they tried, and yet they moved as a unit. The tattooed woman who swore often enough to give Solana’s translator a workout trying to keep up was prickly and angry, but she still made enough coffee in the morning to go around, and, if she thought no one was watching, might even prepare a second cup to deliver to the doctor or the pilot or Zaeed. The Prothean—and Solana was still having trouble wrapping her mind around _that_ —sometimes joined them for meals, though he rarely ate and seemed mostly to enjoy insulting everyone at the table. Some flung insults back. Once she even heard him laugh. Things that would have ended in altercations at the very least on a turian ship were shrugged off. Or laughed off. Under the heavy weight of ever-present tension even the most opposite of the opposites shared a certain kind of camaraderie. They’d gone to hell and back together. They’d fought and bled and lost comrades, and yet the only thing they all had in common was the ship, and Shepard.

Even the most gifted officers she’d ever served with hadn’t commanded that kind of loyalty, or acted as that kind of adhesive. Solana thought of the woman she’d so briefly met, compared her to the overblown images she’d caught on the vids, ran both pictures alongside the little she knew from her brother’s stories, and still came up baffled and drawing blanks. The longer she remained aboard, the more she wanted to meet the Shepard they all knew, wanted to see for herself the woman behind the legend. And the more she dreaded what it would mean if she never got the chance.

The crew had been even more subdued since abandoning the _Empire_ and setting a course back to Mars. Not that she blamed them. Even the little she’d managed to overhear ( _fine_ , eavesdrop; a tactical cloak came in handy when you were the outsider no one kept in the loop) had been awful enough to make her glad she’d been ship-bound. She wasn’t often grateful for her injury, but the looks on the faces and the haunted, brief exchanges—“There were fucking kids down there, fuck. Just… left.” and “Didn’t look too close. Some of those bones… don’t want to think about what they resorted to.”—were enough to paint pictures her mind couldn’t simply shake off. 

Even eavesdropping hadn’t enlightened her as to the reason they were _back_ at the dead planet. Garrus hadn’t offered the information, and she knew better than to press, especially given how unstable he’d been since Shepard’s regression. On a turian ship, any commander as obviously biased—and compromised—as her brother would immediately have been stripped of his office. Hell, she had a hard time stopping herself from reeling off the dozen regulations and rules he was in breach of and relieving him herself. Here, though, on this ship, his emotion seemed to act instead as a binding force, a rallying point. She found herself wondering if this, too, was some legacy of Shepard’s.

She found herself wondering if her brother would ever really recover. That thought was harder to bear.

Solana was sitting alone in the mess, listlessly picking at one of the dextro ration bars—abominably bad even by military standards—when her brother returned from his planetside mission. She blinked as he strode past her, frustration and the barely-controlled, seething rage she was beginning to fear was permanent making him seem twice as menacing. She didn’t think he even saw her. She’d never have admitted it—not to him, not to anyone—but she almost preferred his sadness. The anger was potent fuel, but it scraped away at the things she loved best about him—his gentleness, his kindness, his humor—leaving only a scarred and bitter weapon, too used to the taste of blood and always seeking more.

The tableau was made stranger still by the women who followed on Garrus’ heels. She recognized neither. One was human, wearing a hideous orange jumpsuit, hands bound in front of her. The other, an asari, was dressed in skin-tight red and black armor and moved like a dancer, if a dancer could kill with a thought. The asari scanned the room, her gaze briefly resting on Solana. Her expression remained eerily serene, but Solana felt in her bones that if the asari wished it, she would be dead before her heart finished its next beat. Evidently, she wasn’t determined to be a threat: the asari and her charge disappeared behind Garrus into the medbay. Solana wanted to follow, but couldn’t bring herself to move. All the curiosity in the galaxy wasn’t quite enough to shake the feeling of unease the asari’s gaze had left in its wake.

A few moments later, the Spectre, Alenko, slid into the seat opposite her. They’d shared only a few words before this, generally restricted to pleasantries. He did not look as though he wanted to discuss pleasantries now. She didn’t need to be familiar with human expressions to recognize exhaustion in his, and resignation. He didn’t complain, though, and waited only for a nod of greeting before saying, “Hey. I—sorry, you’re probably going to need a refresher course. Don’t imagine Garrus had any reason to bring up this flavor of crazy. Uh, it’s not something any of us wanted to dwell on, really, but I think it was worse for him. You know. All things considered.”

Solana pushed away the rations and folded her hands in her lap, turning words over in an attempt to find the right ones. Small talk aside, she didn’t know how to address him. It was another thing she didn’t understand about the way the _Normandy_ worked. On a turian ship, protocol dictated nearly everything, and she’d have known exactly where she stood in any given situation based on rank and tier. She’d have known proper forms of address, and appropriate parameters of conversation. None of those rules translated here. Garrus was in command, but even he wasn’t safe from the friendly jibes and needling. Alenko was a Spectre, but that rank didn’t automatically translate into respect; he was, she noted, nearly as much an outsider as she. His tone seemed friendly, but she didn’t want to offend him by replying in kind and appearing rude or overly familiar. In the end, she settled on, “Do you mean the asari and her prisoner?”

“Yes,” he said. “And no. The asari—I don’t know her well. She’s another from the Cerberus cre—from the crew who took down the Collector base. Her name’s Samara. She’s a Justicar.”

Solana couldn’t help it. She laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. She’d seen him do it just enough times to realize it was some kind of coping mechanism, like the way she tapped code patterns against her thigh or Garrus shifted from foot to foot when he was nervous. “Yeah, no. I’ve read the reports and most of… well, everything this crew has ever done just sounds nuts. I can’t imagine what it’s like for someone… new to it all.”

Solana shook her head. “I guess the whole ‘sentient machines from dark space coming to kill us all’ warning coming to pass set a pretty high bar for acceptable levels of insane things being true when you lot are involved.”

He looked like he was going to run his hands through his hair again, but stopped himself at the last moment, frowning. “Right. The thing is, it’s not Samara who’s the strange part of this particular story.”

“Of course not,” Solana agreed, disbelief lending her words an air of informality she’d have avoided otherwise. “An asari from a practically mythological order of warrior-monks is nothing compared to a tank-bred perfect krogan or a Prothean woken up from a fifty thousand year sleep or—”

“Or the woman who was responsible for unleashing Shepard’s clone, nearly killing Shepard and taking out the rest of us as collateral being allowed back on this ship after she very nearly succeeded in stealing it right out from under us not two months ago.”

Solana didn’t even attempt to school her features. Her mandibles flared wide and she made a startled sound deep in her throat before choking out, “Clone? You’re not—you are. Really. A clone.”

“And here you thought the sentient race of killer machines was as strange as it got.” He managed a lopsided smile and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “In all seriousness? Saying the word ‘clone’ out loud never gets easier.” Alenko was evidently familiar enough with turian expressions to recognize utter disbelief in hers. “I guess when Cerberus was bringing Shepard back, they wanted, I don’t know, insurance. Or extra parts, though I don’t know why they’d bother making their organ harvest capable of thinking and feeling. It’s all pretty damned murky, but—”

“I’m sorry,” Solana interrupted. “‘Bringing Shepard back’? From…?”

“Dammit, Garrus,” Alenko muttered. “I’m probably the wrong person to ask about this, since I didn’t exactly believe it, either, but Shepard was… dead. Cerberus wasn’t content to leave her that way. So they… rebuilt her. The woman Garrus was hoping to find on Mars, Miranda Lawson? She was the head of that project. Brooks—whatever her real name is—worked on it too, but later went rogue, stole the clone, and then waited until the damned war was in full-swing before unleashing it. Her.”

“To what purpose?”

Alenko shrugged, hands held wide. “Power? Prestige? Some weird brand of vengeance? Hell if I know. She wanted a Shepard of her own, and she wanted the _Normandy_ , but I have no idea what her reasoning was. It’s not like the Reapers were going anywhere. I—”

He stopped so abruptly Solana knew at once it was because he wanted to say something and didn’t know if he should. Probably, she thought, because it had something to do with Garrus. Or because he didn’t agree with Garrus. Taking a slight risk, she asked, “You don’t approve of her being here?”

She counted to ten before Alenko replied, “The woman’s a sociopath. Garrus thinks she might be able to tell what’s going on with Shepard, but—” Here he stopped again, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. She heard his long inhale.

“But if she’s as bad as you think, you’re not sure why she’d help.”

“Or if her help will be help at all,” he said. “She showed no qualms about lying before, to get what she wanted. She could make things worse. She might make things worse just because she can. She’s poison.”

Solana thought about the careful balance of power aboard the _Normandy_ , all built on trust. How much poison would it take to upset that balance? How much to destroy it?

“Sorry,” Alenko said, when she didn’t immediately answer. “I shouldn’t have—”

Solana chuckled, silencing him. “It’s better to know. Can I ask you something?”

Alenko blinked at her, and then gave a reluctant little nod.

“What would she do?”

“Shepard?” he asked, the word like a prayer on his lips. “I wish I knew. I don’t think she’d be happy about Brooks, but she didn’t kill the woman when she had the chance and, then again… then again, she worked with Cerberus when she needed their resources, and there was a time I’d never have imagined her doing that, either.”

“And… and Garrus?” Solana asked, hating the way her subvocals trembled on her brother’s name. “Is he…” She didn’t know how to finish the question. _Is he okay? Is he sane? Is he always like this? Is this who he is now?_

Alenko’s shoulders rounded and he stared at the table as though he expected it to give him answers. Finally, he sighed, and raised his gaze to meet hers. His smooth human skin was furrowed, and the lines at the corners of his eyes made him look old. She didn’t think she was imagining more of the silvery hair at his temples than even had been present a fortnight earlier. “He’s your brother,” Alenko said softly. “What do _you_ think?”

She looked for words, but found only more questions, more doubts. More fears. All weighted with the certainty that she couldn’t speak any of them aloud without stepping over the very fine line between conversation and insubordination. 

She wasn’t there yet. Until now, until this Brooks woman, Garrus hadn’t put them in _danger._ Now, though, if what Alenko said was true… she shuddered, and couldn’t even blame it on the perfectly-controlled temperature.

When she said nothing, Alenko bent his head again, and put his face in his hands. “Yeah,” he said, the word muffled by his palms. “That’s what I think, too.”


	22. The Dead Tree Gives No Shelter

Garrus regretted his decision almost immediately, though he couldn’t have said exactly why. It wasn’t anything specific. Brooks didn’t immediately launch herself at Shepard’s prostrate form, or draw some heretofore unnoticed weapon, or blind them all with a flashbang grenade in order to seize the ship again. He already knew she wasn’t carrying an omni-tool and he’d run every diagnostic available to him to make certain she wasn’t implanted with illicit tech. She shouldn’t have been a threat. He’d done everything in his power to ensure she _wouldn’t_ be a threat. And still his plates itched and his fingers twitched, longing to reach for a weapon. Longing to put that weapon to use. Brooks didn’t belong here, and he couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that they’d signed some kind of warrant by allowing her to once again come aboard.

Brooks was the kind of person who’d smirk at the fall of an enemy. Garrus had no doubts on that score. He was waiting for it. And yet she didn’t. Once the medbay door closed behind Samara, Brooks merely froze, and stared.

He’d been watching closely to see what—if anything—her expression might betray, and what he saw wasn’t what he’d expected. Too thoughtful, when he’d been anticipating smug. A faint, confused furrow instead of a dubiously raised eyebrow. She even looked as though she was biting the inside of her bottom lip. For a moment he was taken in; he almost let himself believe she might give a damn. Then, of course, he remembered how she’d played them so easily before, with her sycophantic fervor and her well-timed compliments, and he crossed his arms over his chest, returning her stare with one of his own. His promised pain if she dared deception, and wasn’t disingenuous in the slightest. Hell, she almost wished she’d try something so he’d have a good reason to end her.

The entire exchange lasted only a moment. Two heartbeats. Three. His visor told him nothing; Brooks’ pulse didn’t fluctuate and her vitals remained irritatingly regular. She tilted her head in his direction, and if his gaze unnerved her, she gave no sign of it. “And? What precisely do you want me to do? I have any number of skills, but I am afraid mind-reading’s not one of them.” She arched a brow and gestured with her chin. “Better luck letting my jailer have a go, if that’s what you’re looking for, since I haven’t the faintest idea what’s wrong with her except that she’s obviously unconscious.”

If the initial moment had contained anything resembling genuine sympathy, it had vanished completely. Garrus turned to Chakwas, whose disapproval was writ plain on _her_ features, though she spoke none of it aloud. “Could you give her a rundown?”

When the doctor began to extend a datapad, Garrus shot his hand out to grab it first. “No tech,” he insisted. “No matter how innocuous.”

“I’m wounded,” Brooks murmured, the corner of her mouth lifted and her posture still as damnably relaxed as was possible for someone in custody. Her sharp eyes held no ghost of humor. “One might think you don’t trust me. Once bitten, twice shy as the old saying goes, I suppose. Only in your case, it’s once betrayed, never quite stop looking for the next knife in the back. Isn’t that right, Archangel?”

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t so much as blink. He knew exactly what kind of a reaction she was hoping to provoke and he’d be damned thrice over if he obliged. Even his silence was enough for her though; she laughed and lifted her shoulders in a half shrug. “I do wonder, though,” she added conversationally, “if—even with Shepard to follow—you might’ve been a little less keen, had you all the relevant information to hand. You were so very intent on hunting down your traitor, you never really asked who’d manipulated him, did you?”

Garrus said nothing, gesturing to Chakwas. Brooks’ gaze never left Garrus, though, and as soon as the doctor began to speak, Brooks interrupted her, saying, “Didn’t you think the timing was suspect? You’d been needling the Blue Suns for months. How convenient, then, they’d choose _exactly_ that moment to capture your esteemed compatriot. _Just_ in time for Shepard to ride to the rescue.”

“Maya,” Samara said, cool and implacable. “Enough.”

Brooks batted her eyelashes, once again the picture of the guileless Alliance Staff Analyst. Looking at her now, it galled him that he’d ever been taken in by her machinations. “Am I upsetting you, Archangel? Forgive me. I only thought you’d like to know. I find it so hard to believe you never asked. I find it harder to believe _Shepard_ never did. She always liked puzzles, didn’t she? It’s certainly one of the things I’d have written into _her_ dossier.” The false innocence vanished as Brooks narrowed her eyes. “Then again, perhaps she _did_ wonder, and it’s only that she never brought her suspicions to you. It could be that relationship was never quite the two-way street you always believed it to be. So many things Shepard kept to herself, really. Perhaps the suspicion that Cerberus had some hand in orchestrating the events on Omega was only one more.”

“Shut up,” he said, hating the tightness in his subvocals. His mandibles gave an irate little flick. “Or I’ll hand you over to Javik, and I’m sure he’ll take great joy in disposing of you.”

“Oh, do. I quite like the cranky old bastard. He must be at loose ends now the Reapers are gone. Could be I might persuade him that death by airlock isn’t the best use for me. I can be a very valuable asset.” 

“Be silent.” Samara didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t lose her temper. Garrus found himself wanting to abide by the command even though it hadn’t been meant for him. Brooks sent a baleful look over her shoulder, but she didn’t speak.

It was a small victory, but one he’d take.

Garrus inhaled and released the breath slowly, until the urge to do irreparable damage to Brooks and her smirk faded. “The doctor will tell you what we know, you can tell us what the hell Cerberus did to her, and no one has to die in the next half hour.”

Brooks’ bark of laughter, disconcertingly loud in the silent room, was too harsh and graceless to be borne of anything but genuine surprise. Then she glanced back at Samara, almost concerned, and raised her eyebrows in silent question. Samara nodded. 

Brooks cleared her throat. “I don’t know who did this, but I guarantee it’s not Cerberus. Too ham-handed. What was I just saying?” She sighed, and her tone shifted, taking on the quality of a parent giving a dull child a lecture. “Cerberus knew Shepard needed a familiar face—a familiar teammate—on the _Normandy_. I rather suspect the Illusive Man regretted his choice later, but at the time you were an excellent choice. A loose cannon. Devoted to Shepard. Frustrated with the status quo to the tune of turning vigilante. So they arranged everything. Planted the dossier. Made Shepard think you—Garrus Vakarian, her old friend—weren’t interested in having anything to do with her. The moment the _Normandy_ set a course for Omega, the Illusive Man started the ball rolling. Lantar Sidonis was captured, tortured, blackmailed. Operatives planted in all three merc bands set previously determined plans in motion. Your base was attacked. You were left to die. Or, rather, left for Shepard to rescue.”

He asked, “And the gunship? Blowing half my face off? Was that part of the Illusive Man’s plan too?” before he could think better of the questions and swallow them. Samara’s expression was too serene to be reproachful, but he knew at once he shouldn’t have let Brooks continue spinning her tales and playing her games.

She was too damned dangerous. And he couldn’t afford to let her pry her way under his plates. Not with so much at stake.

Lifting an unperturbed shoulder, she explained, “Tarak wanted you dead. The Illusive Man said he was welcome to try as long as he waited for the redhead in the N7-emblazoned armor to show up first. Even if you died, he felt certain Shepard would be moved to action by it; vengeance and loss would bind her closer to him and his goals. If you survived, he knew Shepard would convince you to use your skills for his gain. For him, it was a win-win situation. _That_ is the level of precision they maneuvered with, and this? Even the clones were never treated like this.” Brooks tried to gesture and frowned when her bound hands prevented it. “This is a foolish child playing with an heirloom, thinking it’s just a disposable toy. And it most certainly was _not_ Cerberus.”

Another glance in Samara’s direction bought him a minute shake of the head, too subtle even for Brooks to have noticed. Information, then. Things it was better their unwelcome and conniving prisoner did not know. From Liara, most likely. He hoped she had a direction to point him in; he was growing increasingly certain Brooks would be of little help. Whether she had the capacity or not. 

Garrus listened to the reassuring beep of Shepard’s heart monitor— _beep beep beep_ —and attempted to regulate his own breathing to match. When he was calm, and could speak with only the faintest hum of exasperation in his subharmonics, he said, “Why didn’t the clone have any of Shepard’s memories?”

Brooks turned a skeptical frown his way. “Because I didn’t want her to. Shepard’s memories were problematic. Perhaps if she’d been colder, more calculating, more _ruthless_ , I’d have left well enough alone, but, frankly, a blank canvas is so much easier to paint on. I wanted her for a purpose. I didn’t need all that bloody nobility getting in the way, did I?”

Garrus swallowed. _Beep. Beep. Beep._ He didn’t need Shepard’s voice in his head to know she’d insist he not kill the prisoner. No matter how much he wanted to. “Brainwashing? Brain _damage_? How did you do it?”

She heaved an irritated sigh. “Cloning is not a perfect art. Surely you noticed little changes? Especially in the beginning? Before she settled? Temperament off, decisions skewed? Things… not quite right? It was bound to happen. Your version was certainly the best of the bunch,” she added, a flicker of sneer in her drawl. “You oughtn’t beat yourself up for not seeing it.”

In this, too, Garrus could sense the ploy, the seeds of doubt being sown, and though he didn’t want to admit it—didn’t want to _believe_ it—he remembered those early days, when Shepard was angrier and sharper and less patient, the strange red scars on her face still glowing beneath unhealed skin. He’d been angry too, and frustrated, endlessly haunted by the dead eyes of his dead team, and a part of him—if he was being honest—had appreciated Shepard’s uncompromising edge, so different than the endless, endless patience she’d shown during the hunt to bring down Saren and Sovereign. She had seemed harder, less forgiving. He’d put it down to the strange circumstances surrounding her return.

And sometimes, alone in the main battery, he’d let himself wonder just what Cerberus had done to her.

Mostly, though, he’d seen what he wanted to see. He’d convinced himself. Hell, he’d convinced _her_. _I’m glad you’re not fine,_ he’d told her after the suicide mission, when she’d been asking questions and terrified of the answers all at once. _It’s a real thing, a feeling thing. Means you’re you, and not some kind of clever, cold program wearing a Shepard face._

“She’s _Shepard_ ,” he insisted.

Believing it.

And also remembering the look on the clone’s face as she fell to her death.

Brooks scowled. “Yes, yes. The great Commander Shepard, has no equal, accept no substitutes. Miranda did a very good job. Very meticulous. Very thorough. If only she were here now.” Her lips twisted. “Alas, you’ve only me. Her memories have been tampered with, then? Neither of your asari have been particularly forthcoming with details.”

“If it were?” Garrus asked.

Brooks flashed a bright, fake smile. “I’d think it a particularly ironic twist of fate. I was much better _ridding_ the clone of her mangled memories. Miranda didn’t quite trust anyone else to play with the ‘real’ Shepard’s brain. Her heart, now? Oh, I was always a bit of a master when it came to… ventricles. But then, you know her heart well, too, don’t you?”

Garrus’ hands closed into fists at his sides.

“Oh, don’t fret, Archangel,” she said airily. “I still know more than your field medic doctor. We’ll see if we can’t put this Shepard to rights. If you’ll set aside your paranoia and let me see the problem. I needn’t actually _touch_ the machines, but it would be awfully helpful to get a look at her brainwaves.”

Garrus nodded reluctantly and stood over Brooks’ shoulder, watching her every move, listening to the rise and fall of Chakwas’ voice reciting the familiar litany of Shepard’s ills, as the feeling of having made a terrible mistake only grew.


	23. Then Spoke the Thunder

_It’s not just raining now, it’s pouring, and she stumbles through the dark, breath coming in desperate gasps. Running. Always running. She just can’t remember why. Or what from. Something bad. Something awful. She knows that much. Doesn’t she?_

_Her head aches. The mud drags at her feet with every step, slowing her down, pulling her under._

_The words of the ancient nursery rhyme run circles in her mind. Her voice._ It’s raining. _Her mother’s voice._ It’s pouring. _The voices of all the children in her kindergarten class, once upon a time._ The old man is snoring.

_Mama will wonder where she is._

He fell out of bed and bumped his head.

_No. No, Mama isn’t alive to care. Mama’s perennially dirt-stained fingers are wet with blood now, and they will never again dig in the earth, never again coax life from the hard ground, never again pull tangles from her hair. Papa won’t sing nonsense songs, or fix even the most unfixable broken things, or buy overpriced perfume for his wild Irish Rose. All the children in her kindergarten class are dead, or worse._

And he couldn’t get up in the morning.

_She never understood that part when she was a little girl. She understands it now._

_The rain doesn’t wash away the stink of smoke and blood. It doesn’t drown out the sound of screams._

_But that’s wrong too. When she looks down, she’s not holding her father’s screwdriver; a pink ribbon is wrapped tightly around her palm. Instead of a half-unbuttoned shirt, sodden white chiffon tangles around her stumbling feet. She looks back just long enough to see the glint of rhinestones in the mud behind her. The stars are falling and she can’t breathe and the air tastes of roses even as it stinks of death._

_Mustn’t look back. Mustn’t. Mustn’t. She doesn’t belong here and she has to keep moving forward. It’s what she was trained to do, isn’t it? What do—what do you—what do you need me to do? She always does what’s needed, doesn’t she?_ I’m a weapon. Point me at a target and shoot.

_She’s supposed to be somewhere else. With someone else? She’s lost her pretty shoes and the mud sucks at her toes and her dress is dirty to the knees. Her foster mother is going to kill her. She’s going to be in so much trouble._

_You’re practically part of the family._

_What family, though? The one she was born into, ripped away when she was still closer to the child she was than the adult she became? Certainly not the one forced upon her, with their expectations and their rules and their fake smiles. The one she chose for herself? She ought to remember their faces. She ought to remember their names. But the rain beats down on her, and the mud clings to her, and all she knows is that the pink ribbon belongs to a girl who died too soon and that somewhere someone else is waiting for her. At the bar? No. That’s not quite right. None of this is quite right._

_A bad dream. A nightmare._

_And yet all the pinching in the world doesn’t wake her up. She tries. Oh, God, she tries._

_He had an order for her._ Forgive the insubordination _, but he’s never really insubordinate, is he? Not to her. She’s good at following orders. She doesn’t want to disappoint him, not when he’s always had her six, not when he’s always been there. He trusted her at once, followed without question. He believes in her. Everything else might shift on its axis, the fabric of the galaxy might rip beneath her, but she has never, ever doubted that. Him. She shouldn’t keep him waiting. Not now, when it means so much._

Please, don’t make me go back. I don’t know what’s real when I’m there.

 _Sudden pain nearly sends her to her knees, but she knows if she stops it’s the end. The ribbon-wrapped hand clutches at her side and comes away stained. With wine? No. No. That’s wrong._ You did good, child. You did good. _Everything is wrong. It’s blood. She can smell it, sharp and metallic. His blood smells different, a blue pool spreading too rapidly around her knees. No. That was long ago. Or not yet. She can’t remember. She’s not sure she wants to remember._

_What do you need me to do?_

_Keep going._

_Is the rain real? Is the blood? The ribbon wrapped tight around her palm feels real, but so does everything else. Do the memories belong to her? Is she the girl sitting in the cupboard eating stolen cookies? Is she the girl whose night of stolen kisses turned to the loss of everything she loved? Is she the girl marking red ‘x’s on her calendar, or the one whose feet ache from dancing until dawn?_

_Is someone waiting for her, or has she imagined that too?_

_Ignoring the pain, blinking the water from her eyes, she pushes on._ Point me _, she thinks._ Point me at a target. And shoot.

_What do you need me to do?_

_A rustle in the trees behind her, and she knows she shouldn’t look back but she does, twisting so quickly she nearly trips herself in her skirts, her hand reaching for her hip as though it expects to find a weapon there. It doesn’t, of course. She brings her balled fists up, thumb curled over her closed fingers the way her father taught her._

_A woman stands on the path, and the rain doesn’t seem to touch her._

It’s raining; it’s pouring.

_Her white clothing is not damp or muddy. Her dark hair falls soft and dry about her beautiful face. She isn’t smiling, but then her smile is rare and the more precious for being hard-won._

_Isn’t it?_

The old man is snoring.

 _A name forms on the tip of her tongue. It tastes of shared secrets, sweetness touched by shadow. It’s a name that says_ I know you. I know you better than you know yourself. I made you, once. We made each other.

_Before she can speak it, however, the woman takes a step forward. The mud doesn’t seem to pull at her black boots, and it certainly hasn’t left her dirty to the knees. She’s pristine. Untouchable._

_She’s still not smiling._

He fell out of bed and bumped his head.

_Her blue, blue eyes shimmer with tears. Or rain._

_She’s never known this woman to weep, so it must be the rain. Mustn’t it?_

_“I’m sorry, Shepard.”_

_And then the woman in white brings a pistol up. She moves like a dancer, graceful and precise. Cool metal presses against her forehead._

And he couldn’t get up in the morning.

_She understands it now._

_The bullet steals her voice before her lips can finish forming the word_ why.

#

Garrus lingered in the medbay while Chakwas filled Brooks in. He hovered over Brooks’ shoulder while she perused brain scans and made displeased little noises under her breath. When she hinted things might go more smoothly if her hands weren’t bound, he ignored her. 

He knew he had other responsibilities, and that outside the crew would be wondering what was going on and whether he had, as it seemed, lost his mind.

He wondered, just a little, if he had.

After a time, Samara moved to the medbay window and gestured; a few moments later the door slid open to admit Kaidan. The Spectre’s eyes narrowed as they fell on Brooks, who only smiled one of her obnoxious little smiles. Samara sent a look her way and she swallowed whatever comment she’d been about to make. Then Samara moved to Kaidan’s side and spoke softly to him, too quiet for Garrus to hear. Whatever she said brought flickers of blue biotic energy to Kaidan’s closed fists, and the glower when he looked at Brooks again was even more pronounced.

Samara moved to Garrus’ side, and laid a gentle hand upon his forearm. Gentle but insistent. He nearly protested, but some crack in her serene mask prevented him. She dropped her hand, heading for the medbay door, and he followed her.

She didn’t speak at once. Indeed, she strode the path to the main battery without once looking back. He couldn’t say the same. He glanced through the medbay windows as they passed. Kaidan had taken over Samara’s watch, and Garrus could see his biotics still at the ready even through the faint blur of the glass.

As soon as the doors to the battery closed and locked, Samara drew a slip of paper from within her armor; it was still warm from her skin as she passed it into his waiting hand. She closed his fingers around it, her two hands firm on his one. “I did not read it,” she said. “It was meant for you alone, and I would have given it over sooner, but it is better she know as little as possible.”

“I don’t know that she should be here at all.”

Samara dropped her hands and turned a thoughtful gaze over his shoulder. “I believe you may be right. We have not left the planet’s orbit, Garrus. I could take her back, if you wished it.”

“What did Liara say? Exactly?”

“Only that she could not find Miranda. She spoke briefly with Jacob, but he was never a scientist, and knew nothing that might help.”

“And he hadn’t heard from Miranda, either, I take it?”

“Not since Shepard’s par—not since before the final push on Earth.”

Garrus shook his head. The piece of paper tucked into his palm burned. “You don’t have to skirt around the hard parts for my benefit, Samara. Taylor didn’t have any other suggestions?”

“None of the former Cerberus operatives he was in contact with ever worked on Miranda’s project.”

“Did he think of Brooks, or did Liara?”

“Liara found her name in a log of Alliance prisoners. As I gather, they spoke at some length. That is when she contacted me.”

“And you agreed to play jailer. I’m still a little… no, scratch that, _a lot_ surprised.”

Samara regarded him calmly for several moments before saying, “Liara is young.”

When no further explanation came, he shrugged and said, “Isn’t everyone, compared to you?”

She smiled faintly. “Indeed. I mean only that Liara’s hope is the hope of youth. For all she has experienced and all she has seen, something of naiveté clings to her. It is, I believe, part of her charm. It will, I think, be a sad day when she loses it.”

“And yet here she is, sending enemies into our midst. She’s seen what Brooks is capable of. She must have had some pretty damned potent evidence. Or Brooks got to her.”

Samara inclined her head. “Liara is convinced Maya can help. Perhaps she is right. Still, had I not agreed to ‘play jailer’ as you say, she would have sought someone else. Perhaps someone more malleable. Perhaps someone Maya might have manipulated.”

“And your Code wouldn’t stand for it?”

Samara closed her eyes briefly, and for a moment he witnessed the weight of her hundreds of years upon the smooth plane of her brow. “I… care for Shepard, Garrus. A great deal. When I was bound to her service, she never asked of me something I could not give. She could have abused my oath and she did not. I… owe her a kind of debt. Guarding her now is the least I can do. I would that I had been near to prevent its necessity.”

“You and me both.”

Samara’s unblinking gaze turned shrewd, and he found he had to look away from the appraisal on her face. “And yet we neither of us are responsible for her current state. It would serve you well to remember it.”

Garrus said nothing. Samara, damn her perceptiveness anyway, only shook her head. A little sadly. Tinged with an edge of disappointment. Her voice, however, held only the same calm certainty he’d come to appreciate. “I meant what I said, Garrus. I will kill Maya without hesitation if it becomes necessary. Hope is an emotion for the young, and I have not been young for a very long time. I will not be blinded by it. Do what you must to find those who have done this to Shepard. Leave Maya Brooks to me.”

He held out the hand not holding the paper she’d given him—such a Shepard gesture, really—and after a moment, Samara raised her own to clasp his in return.

Garrus waited until the door closed behind her. He broke the seal keeping the little message unread, and unfolded the paper. He recognized his father’s writing at once, the lines and curves of script far more elegant than Garrus’ own. It took him a moment to recognize that on top of writing the words in turian, his father had coded the message as well. A variation on a C-Sec cipher, it meant the message within was one of utmost importance, and unparalleled sensitivity.

_Suspect Attus Klim connected to Admiral’s office. No definitive proof. Consider channel unsecured. Level 8._

Level 8. Garrus swiped a weary hand down his face. The investigation into Saren had been a Level 8. It usually meant a high-ranking target, one with protection, one liable to disappear into the ducts and never be seen again if they were spooked before sufficient evidence was gathered. He didn’t want to believe his father was implicating Hackett himself, but…

But Level 8.

“Crap,” Garrus said into the silence of the battery, answered only by the hum of the Thanix.


	24. At the Violet Hour

For three days, nothing happened.

Garrus waited for the admiral to contact him. He waited for his father to find a way to send another message. He sent as vague and encrypted a warning as he could to Liara and waited with bated breath for her equally encrypted reply. She promised to be careful. She apologized about their still-missing mutual friend. She said nothing about Brooks, nothing about Hackett, and nothing about Shepard. Not that he expected her to.

He didn’t trust the comms any more than he trusted anything else, and trust was in very, very short supply. He could only hope Liara was using the same caution.

For three days, he waited for Brooks to betray them. He waited for Joker to snap. He waited for one or the other of his restless crewmates to demand a return to Earth.

He thought about pointing the _Normandy_ in an unanticipated direction, hiding in the orbit of some moon, setting course for the edge of the system and just _going_ until they ran out of fuel, but practicality stopped him. Practicality and the desire for revenge. He couldn’t fight a nameless enemy. Orbiting lazily around Mars, they were—as Shepard would have said—sitting ducks (whatever that meant; nothing good), but at least their enemies might deign to show up if they lingered long enough. And once he knew who they were, he could set about killing them. One by one. He could, after all, be very patient when it was required of him. Omega had taught him that much, and it wasn’t the kind of lesson a person ever forgot. Ask Kron Harga. Or Thralog Mirki’it. 

Then again, those men had been straightforward enemies. They’d left trails to follow. Leads to chase. Underlings and customers to… interrogate. He’d been the hunter and they the hunted.

He did not feel like a hunter now.

At the worst moments, Garrus even found himself longing for the simplicity of the Reapers. They’d been an impossible foe, hunters too big and too dangerous for any one little crew—any one little galaxy—to fight, but at least they’d been a known entity. Now he found himself stalking the ship at all hours, peering too closely at the faces all around him, wondering if he’d once again misjudged and allowed a traitor into their midst. Wondering if he’d be able to tell before it was all too late.

For three days, he avoided his sister. It was too hard to hide his struggles from her; she saw him too clearly and knew him too well. He tried to avoid Tali for the same reason. Tali, however, refused to let herself be avoided. He’d slip into the battery or the hold beneath engineering or even his own cabin only to find her there waiting for him, like she was keeping a pre-determined appointment, and he never quite had the heart to send her away again. 

Tali never asked questions, though, and if she doubted his decisions she never spoke those misgivings aloud. She always brought food, and cajoled him until he ate it. Her conversation—when she spoke at all—remained innocuous and innocent. Tali didn’t push. She knew when to let a subject drop.

She never mentioned the future, not even in passing. Her conversation centered only on the distant past, safe and familiar, played for laughs instead of melancholy. “Do you remember the time Wrex fell asleep in the middle of one of the mission debriefings,” she asked, “and Shepard thought the most appropriate response was to headbutt him awake again?” Or, “The look on your face, Garrus, the first time we piled into the Mako and she took off. Keelah, I wish I’d thought to record it. I didn’t even _know_ turians could look so completely undignified. I couldn’t even be scared. I was too busy laughing at you.” 

Funny how a story about fighting for your life—or a krogan battlemaster snoring through a meeting, or allowing your commanding officer to drive—could be so amusing later when it most certainly had _not_ been so at the time. (Except for the snoring. That _had_ been hilarious. Shepard had laughed off the bloody nose and Wrex and clapped her on the shoulder and said it took a real quad to poke a sleeping krogan. Thinking back, Garrus suspected that was the moment their working relationship had actually blossomed—like the blood from Shepard’s nose—into friendship.)

Several times a day, Chakwas sent him irritated reminders to sleep. Sometimes he even did. On the third day it was from one of these restless naps he was awoken by the crackle of the comms in the cabin, and Joker’s voice calling his name.

He was awake at once, already scrambling up from the couch, blinking the last of the weariness from his eyes. “Yeah?” he said into the emptiness of his cabin, the word echoing in the dimness. The fish didn’t appear to care. In his cage, Odysseus squeaked. Probably meant he didn’t care either.

“Doc wants you in the medbay,” Joker said. “Think it’s important.”

“Shepard?” Already heading for the door, Garrus added, “Did Brooks do some—?”

Joker didn’t let him finish, interjecting, “Probably best if you go yourself. You know. Quickly.”

The silence took on a different quality then, and Garrus knew Joker had disconnected completely. He holstered the sidearm he’d taken to carrying since Brooks came on board. The elevator had never seemed so slow, and yet he found himself dreading what he might find. Joker’s words hadn’t given him enough to go on. Subvocals might’ve told him more. He braced himself for more setbacks, another series of disappointments. Chakwas was alive to ask for him, at least, so he supposed he wasn’t about to walk in on a bloodbath.

As the doors opened to admit him to the crew deck, he let himself consider—just for a moment—how incredibly messed up he had to be to have _mass murder_ be pretty much the next possible thing on a list of likely complications. He covered the last of the distance at a jog, earning a startled glance from the single occupant of the mess, a young woman—Henderson? Hendricks?—nursing her cup of coffee.

Waves of tension assaulted him as soon as the door slid open, and he surveyed the scene the way he’d have taken in a battlefield, noting people and placements, friends and foes, imagining courses of action and the wisest use of the resources available to him. His pistol was in hand as soon as he recognized Brooks, the resident known hostile, standing behind a blue wall of biotics, not unlike the shield Samara had once wielded to send Shepard’s team through the seeker swarms on the Collector base. Samara herself stood nearby, one hand outstretched and the other holding a gun also trained on Brooks. Even through the shimmering wall, Garrus saw surprise on Brooks’ face. It even looked genuine. Not that he gave much credit to appearances anymore. Not with her.

Chakwas stood beside Shepard’s bed, and didn’t even look up when he entered. Shepard, however, did. His breath caught and he couldn’t release it again, but the hand holding the gun didn’t waver. The back of Shepard’s bed had been levered into a partly-sitting position, and she turned her head as the door opened, red hair shifting to fall partly across her features. 

Her smile took a moment too long to form. “Garrus,” she said. Her voice, rough with disuse but definitely her voice. Like the smile, he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. He’d have sooner expected the bloodbath than an awake, responsive Shepard who appeared to recognize him and hadn’t yet uttered the word _uneasy_. “Don’t tell me… the one… let this sociopath back on my ship.”

He didn’t move, didn’t even blink, afraid too loud a breath might break the spell or wake him up from the dream. He wanted to live in it just a little longer. Shepard didn’t lift her head from the pillow, but one red brow arched at him, and though the look was familiar—it was all so damned _familiar_ —he didn’t trust what his own eyes were seeing.

 _This is it, Vakarian_ , he thought. _You’ve finally lost it. You’re on your way to the place they hide turians who shame the Hierarchy by not being able to keep their shit together._

“What’s going on?” he asked. His subharmonics gave the words a strained edge. Even to his own ears, he thought he should’ve sounded happier to see her. Shepard’s smile slipped. “Was this Brooks?”

“You might ask me,” Brooks said from within her prison of biotic energy. “I _am_ standing right here. And as much as I wish I could take credit for this little miracle, I didn’t do anything.”

“Be _quiet_ ,” Chakwas barked, and somehow it was _this_ , the whip-crack sharpness of the doctor’s tone, that convinced Garrus he wasn’t in the middle of some kind of elaborate hallucination. She sounded entirely too frazzled and entirely too concerned. She sounded like she didn’t know what the hell was going on. Which made the both of them.

“I feel fine,” Shepard said. “A little achey, maybe. I guess a woman can only break her legs so many times…”

Instead of laughing, Chakwas lifted her head and turned wide, disbelieving eyes Garrus’ way. The gaze broke his paralysis and he strode to the doctor’s side.

“I flatlined for a second,” Shepard explained, still looking at him, eyebrow still arched, lips once again faintly smiling. Her tongue darted out to moisten dry lips. “And then I woke up. The good doctor’s having some trouble with it, but Samara was here. She saw.”

Garrus shook his head. “Shepard…”

In the same beleaguered tone, she replied, “Vakarian…”

He forced himself to look away from her, ignoring the protest as he stalked across the room and faced Brooks through the biotic barrier. After a quick hand gesture, the blue glow glimmered a final time and faded. On his periphery, the crackle of blue remained at Samara’s fingertips.

Garrus was gratified to see genuine fear in the lines around Brooks’ eyes; tougher to hide it from this distance.  Tougher to mask it. He stood close enough to see her lips tremble as they clung to the characteristic smirking smile. Not quite so effortless. Not quite so cocky. Still, she lifted her chin and met him gaze for gaze. He gave her that much. Wrex would probably have said Brooks had a quad too. “Is this a trick?”

“Garrus,” Shepard said behind him. He heard the warning. He didn’t care. Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones. It was the wrong feeling of Anderson’s _I thought you should hear it from me. You deserve that much_ and Sidonis’ _Big Operation. More than I could chew, but nothing the two of us can’t handle together. Like old times._

“I told you—” Brooks began.

He shot her. One bullet, just above her knee. Enough to maim. Not a shot to kill. Blood and flesh exploded from her leg, but before she could crumple he reached out and grabbed her by the arm. She was a small woman, slight, and it took hardly any effort to keep her upright, even one-handed. Her lips weren’t smirking now, and although he was vaguely aware of voices around him, he had eyes only for Brooks’ lying face. “What did you do?”

“You _shot_ me,” she said through chattering teeth. Shock made her tremble; he only held her tighter.

“Yeah,” he replied, glaring down at her. “And I’ll do it again. So please, push me. What did you do?”

Brooks ground her teeth together and unwilling tears trickled from her wide eyes down her cheeks. “I’m not lying. I swear. I _swear_.”

Shepard said his name again, and although every instinct honed in the past several years longed to snap to attention and follow her orders, he didn’t. He _couldn’t._ Too much at stake. Too much to lose. Something wasn’t right. He needed to figure it out before everything went to hell.

“Doesn’t mean much coming from you. Is she going to seize in five minutes? Is this some kind of moment of terminal lucidity?” He gave her arm a shake and though he could see her fighting it, she still cried out, her voice a high, pained whine. _There_ , he thought. _Now that’s honest. Finally._ “ _What did you do_?”

“Garrus!” Chakwas snapped. “Stop this at once!”

He didn’t know if he was heartened or disturbed that Samara _hadn’t_ stopped him. Yet. A swift look in her direction revealed little. She was watching him closely, and her hands still glowed blue, but she made no move to disarm him. Or hell, kill him. She must think he was on to _something,_ at least.

“My leg,” Brooks moaned. “My _leg._ ”

“You’re in a damned medbay,” Garrus snarled, pushing his face close enough he could feel her panting breath against his plates. This close he could smell the sourness of her sweat, fear mixed with the scent of blood. “You’re not going to die unless I put a bullet in your head. Which I might do. If you don’t start cooperating.”

“Garrus.” Shepard’s voice had gone quiet, the voice she used when they were alone. _Shepard_ and not _Commander_. Without releasing Brooks, he turned his head just enough to see her. Her smile was gone, replaced by a tight-lipped frown and a furrow of displeasure between her brows. “She can’t tell you what she doesn’t know.”

“What do you remember?” He didn’t mean for the words to sound so harsh, so accusatory, but he couldn’t modulate his tone, couldn’t rein in the strange blend of fear and disbelief and certainty of imminent disappointment.

“Honestly,” Shepard said with a very slight, pained shrug, “not much after we put this one away the last time. Rain. You said you had an order for me. Anderson... died. So did the Illusive Man. I said… I said _what do you need me to do_ and I was pretty sure they needed me to die, too. I thought I did. I flatlined, the doctor said, and then I woke up.”

“Nothing else? Nothing… you said I made you uneasy.”

Her lips turned up, though the crease between her brows didn’t completely disappear. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

He wanted to believe her. He did. But her gaze slid away from his at the last moment and though he couldn’t put his finger on it, something was wrong with her smile.


	25. Winter Kept Us Warm

Shepard was patient. 

She had to be. Impatient snipers didn’t make their shots. Impatient snipers gave away their locations before their targets were neutralized. Impatient snipers were dead snipers. And Shepard was a very, very good sniper. Always had been. She still remembered the startled, incredulous look on her instructor’s face the day the sniper rifle training started and she’d risen first to volunteer. She’d been too young and too pretty and still too soft about the edges from her life pre-military. She knew very well the picture she made. Her hands hadn’t yet grown calluses, and her slender arms didn’t look able even to lift a rifle, let alone shoot one—or so one of the smart-asses in the back yelled out. She ignored the insult. She was stronger than she looked; always had been. Stronger and smarter and more determined to succeed. While the instructor reprimanded the loudmouth, Shepard busied herself getting to know the most beautiful gun she’d ever seen. She took her time, checking every inch, learning the old girl’s secrets. She was patient, and patience paid off. Maybe she didn’t hit the bull’s-eye, but she was the only one who hit the _target_ that day, and she was the only one who earned a nod and a gruff, “Back here at 0600 tomorrow,” from the notoriously demanding, notoriously selective instructor.

She hadn’t been a particularly patient child; her mother’s beleaguered mantra of, “Patience is a virtue, dearest,” was repeated—and never heeded—on an almost daily basis. She’d always wanted everything _now._ She wanted cookies _now_ , not after dinner. She wanted to go to the park _now_ , even though a rainstorm loomed. She wanted to kiss Brandon Deluca _now_ , weeknight curfew be damned. Decades later, it still made her cringe to think of the tantrums and whining and petulant foot-stomping and door-slamming she’d subjected her poor parents to. They’d deserved better from her. They’d certainly deserved a little patience.

Her mother’s lesson finally sank in the night the raiders came. _Blood and fire and blood and her parents and a kitchen knife stuck in an alien chest and yellow paint bubbling and peeling and skin bubbling and peeling and so much blood._ Patience kept her in the tree. Patience bade her be silent until the voices calling in the dark a couple of days later identified themselves as Alliance, and until she saw their human faces and blue uniforms and placating hands for herself. Patience kept her quiet and obedient while strangers with blank expressions decided what ought to be done with her. Patience was the _only_ thing that kept her from running during the two years she rarely spoke of, between Mindoir and enlisting. 

Patience _was_ a virtue, and it had served her well. Much as she might wish it had not come at so high a cost, it was a lesson she was glad to have learned. Trapped in a bed in her own ship’s medbay, instead of shouting or demanding answers no one appeared to be in any condition to give, she put her patience into practice, and she turned her frustration to observation. It wasn’t much, but she could at least begin to piece together the puzzle if she paid very close attention to the pieces.

Chakwas—yellowed bruises about the eyes, moving slowly and favoring her left arm—sedated Brooks, ordered Garrus from the room, and turned her attention to fixing the mess he’d left in his wake. Shepard almost spoke then, almost asked Garrus to stay behind and talk to her—she hadn’t seen this side of him since the mess with Harkin and Sidonis, and that he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes was disconcerting as hell—but the doctor’s tone as she asked him to leave was strained and tinged with more than a little desperation. At the door, Garrus sent a last look over his shoulder, but Shepard couldn’t quite read his expression. Familiarity pricked at her. She didn’t know what he was saying, but it was definitely a look she’d seen before. She just couldn’t place it. She parted her lips to ask—beg?—him to remain but was halted by Samara’s cool fingers on the back of her hand. Startled, Shepard turned. Samara gave an almost-imperceptible shake of her head, and by the time Shepard glanced toward the door again, Garrus was gone.

A few moments later, the door opened and Kaidan dashed in, skidding to a halt as he took in the scene. She saw him notice the blood first, “What the—” and then Chakwas bent over Brooks’ prostrate form, “Garrus said you needed—” and then her, “ _Shepard_?”

“Kaidan,” she greeted.

She was aiming for pleasant, and even if she didn’t quite make it, his response was still completely baffling. Instead of a smile or a hello, he looked as though she’d just shot a puppy or a small child or a hanar preacher in front of him. Nearly stumbling over his own feet, dark eyes wide, he choked out, “You remember who I—”

“Alenko,” Chakwas barked, “I need your hands. This bleeding isn’t going to stop itself. Bloody Vakarian. Samara, please—”

“I am watching the monitors, Doctor. I will inform you immediately should anything change. For now, all appears stable.”

“You mean me?” Shepard asked, pitching her voice for Samara alone, but keeping one eye on the activity on the other side of the medbay. Alenko had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt—civilian, Shepard noticed, odd it wasn’t a uniform—and was scrubbing his hands. Chakwas moved about the room, gathering supplies one-handed. “Are you expecting _instability_?”

“Evidently you were not yourself when you woke earlier,” Samara said, just as quietly. Her eyes never left the bank of medical equipment behind Shepard’s head.

Shepard swallowed. Heavy words: _not yourself._

_You said I made you uneasy._

“You weren’t here?”

“I was not.”

The asari linked her hands loosely behind her back, somehow at ease but not entirely open. Something about her expression remained guarded. Even more so than usual. Shepard frowned in response. “ _What do you remember?”_ Garrus had snarled— _snarled_ , at _her_. She’d assumed he was still angry about Brooks. Now she wasn’t so sure.

If she hadn’t been herself, who had she been?

Her head ached, and she almost asked for some kind of painkiller, but Kaidan cursed and Chakwas launched into a complicated explanation of what he needed to do, and suddenly a headache seemed like the least of the problems at hand.

“What _happened_ , Samara?”

“No one knows for certain.”

“But the Reapers—”

“Are no more. That much we do know.”

She should have been surprised by this information—she had no idea how complete enemy annihilation could even be _possible_ … had the Crucible fired? What the hell had it _done?_ —but she wasn’t taken aback in the least. Like a whisper she couldn’t quite hear, a prickle of something like concern scratched at the back of her head. Or maybe it was doubt.

Maybe it was fear.

In any case, it and the headache did not get along. Shepard closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to remember. Across the room, Chakwas and Kaidan were working steadily on Brooks now; she listened to the soothing murmur of the doctor’s voice as she directed Kaidan’s hands. Every few moments he raised his voice in question, and Chakwas answered with unwavering certainty. _This vessel. That bone fragment. Yes, Kaidan. No, not that one. This needs to be cauterized; it’s too badly damaged. Use medi-gel there. Steady, Kaidan. Steady._  

Shepard ignored them. She remembered the rain in London; remembered the sound of the drops pattering against her armor, the feel of her damp ponytail slapping against her neck, the smell of ash—and worse—on the cool breeze. She remembered thinking she should’ve worn her damned helmet for a change. And then fire. Had something happened on the final push? Hadn’t Garrus been injured? He seemed well enough now; perhaps the shout and the fire and the _smell_ were just echoes of nightmares. Worst case scenarios that had never actually come to pass. It was an easier thought to bear than the other. Stealth system or no stealth system, calling for a _Normandy_ evac in a hot zone with Harbinger looking on?

That seemed the more real possibility, though, the longer she thought on it; the terror that had driven her to make the call tasted of bitterness on her tongue and redoubled the pounding efforts of her headache. But if Garrus was healed now, perhaps she’d been out longer than she imagined. A week? A month? Her body was still injured even though her cybernetics— _even you are partly synthetic_ —should’ve made short work of mere burns and broken bones. Hell, that final push in London had come mere _weeks_ after the _Valiant._ And she’d been fit for that duty; she was sure of it. Almost. A shiver of disquiet ran the length of her spine. She wiggled her toes beneath the blankets just to be certain she could.

Though her toes obliged her, she couldn’t shake the feeling something was very, very wrong. It wasn’t just the unwelcome return of Maya Brooks, or her own injuries, or the way Kaidan had looked at her when he entered. It wasn’t even Garrus’ temper or his willingness to shoot a… well, an _unarmed_ sociopath in cold blood. No, it was a deeper, more pervasive sense of wrong. Like the tip of a tongue probing at tender gums and the gap where a tooth had been, Shepard tried to feel out the holes in her memory and was met only with vague throbbing and the feeling of _absence_. Some things were clear: the rain, Anderson’s slack features gazing at an Earth he couldn’t see, her own hands slick with hot blood. The rest was a mess of images she couldn’t make sense of at all. She had no idea what— _what do you need me to do?_ —she’d done. No idea how long— _come back alive_ —she’d been asleep.

“You could’ve stopped him from shooting Brooks.”

“I could have.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I did not.”

Shepard turned her head and opened her eyes, arching one eyebrow. “Really, Samara? This is a game five-year-olds play to annoy each other.”

She was rewarded with a small but genuine smile. “Forgive me, Shepard. I think it best to wait on the doctor’s expertise in these matters. I beg only a little patience.”

Sighing, Shepard closed her eyes again, listening to the hum and beep of the machines. The sounds were reassuringly steady. Without the distraction of speaking to Samara, however, her thoughts returned to Garrus. He’d all but ignored her when she’d attempted to order him to stand down; hell, it was almost like he hadn’t heard her at all. And then he’d looked at her so strangely, as if he didn’t recognize her. 

Or didn’t believe her. 

Didn’t _trust_ her?

This time the shudder was enough to bring an ache to her ribs and remind her pointedly of the still-healing clavicle. Samara’s fingertips pressed her brow and the woman’s thumb gently smoothed out the furrow there. “Rest, my friend,” she said.

Shepard thought about protesting, _wanted_ to protest, but instead she only yawned and chased her missing memories into sleep.

#

When Shepard woke, Chakwas sat at her bedside instead of Samara. Or Garrus. Shepard tried not to be disappointed about the latter, but something of it must have shown on her face because the doctor’s expression took on a very particular, peculiar cast and she said, “I’m afraid I sent him away.”

It was a lie. Shepard _knew_ it was a lie. Her stomach twisted, but she forced herself to smile, forced herself to change the subject.

“What happened to your arm?”

If Shepard hadn’t been watching so intently, she might’ve missed the way Chakwas stilled, like an animal afraid of a nearby predator. The doctor’s answering smile slipped, turned brittle. “An accident.”

“Some accident.”

“It was—”

“Did I do it?”

“Shepard…”

“If it’s all the same, I’d rather you didn’t lie to me again.”

“Yes,” Chakwas replied, the single word curt and brisk and professional. It did nothing to hide the woman’s distress. Before Shepard could apologize—something, anything—the doctor added, “It wasn’t your fault. You—”

“Weren’t myself. So I hear. Who was I? The kind of monster who attacks helpless doctors?”

It didn’t sound as much like a joke as she wanted it to, and Chakwas didn’t laugh. Quite the opposite. A deep frown creased her features, and she flashed a bright light into Shepard’s eyes. She appeared to pass whatever test the doctor’d set for her, because Chakwas sat down again and folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me something, Shepard,” she said, her tone deceptively conversational. “What happened on your eighteenth birthday?”

Shepard snorted. Her ribs ached in vague protest. “Is this a trick question?”

“I hope not.”

“I hear a very loud _but_ in there.”

“Answer the question, please.”

Shepard’s collarbone protested as she shook her head a little too strongly. “I enlisted. Hell, eighteen couldn’t come fast enough. I was marking the days in little red ‘x’s on my calendar for weeks beforehand.”

Chakwas’ shoulders rounded and she seemed, in an instant, to deflate. She put her face in her hands, and if Shepard had been any more mobile, she’d have jumped up to offer whatever comfort she could. Instead, she said, “Karin. Did I say something wrong?”

Chakwas shook her head, face still hidden. When she looked up a moment later, her expression was calm but her eyes held the unmistakable sheen of tears. “No,” she said. “No, that’s precisely the correct answer.”

“So what’s with the—”

“I don’t understand,” Chakwas admitted. “I don’t understand any of this. I want to believe you’ve had a spontaneous recovery—if anyone could do so, it is you—but if this is some temporary lucidity? If you slip away again? I don’t know that he—I— _any of us_ could bear it.”

“Oh,” Shepard said, less a word and more a stunned stone falling from her lips. “It was… bad?”

“Very.”

“And Garrus—”

Chakwas nodded. Shepard felt a knot of answering tears in the base of her own throat but she swallowed them down.

 _Come back alive._ He’d probably also meant _come back yourself and not a doctor-attacking lunatic with swiss cheese for brains._

“We’ll figure it out,” Shepard said with more conviction than she felt.

Perhaps Chakwas heard the lie the same way Shepard had heard hers. “We will.”

Still, her head ached and her bones ached and she thought of Garrus standing at the medbay door, looking back at her. She remembered the unreadable expression now, knew where she’d seen it before, but the knowledge only filled her with dread and the kind of grief that couldn’t merely be swallowed away. 

It was the same expression—cool and calculating and merciless—he’d spared for the clone as she fell to her death from the back of the _Normandy_ ’s hold.


	26. The Awful Daring of a Moment's Surrender

Shepard hated few things with the passion she reserved for her hatred of being bedridden. It didn’t matter if it was recovering from a head cold or a gunshot wound (or, evidently, full-body trauma complete with amnesia), she wasn’t a good patient. She was very much of the opinion that beds served a limited number of purposes, and lounging about ‘getting better’ wasn’t one of them.

This particular recovery was worse than most, she found, because when she requested a datapad or an omni-tool, she was denied outright, and when she asked for visitors, Chakwas merely shook her head and went back to her work. Even a plea—command, really—for a sitrep was ignored, which might’ve made her angrier if the doctor hadn’t looked so upset about it. Brooks remained heavily sedated, and Samara, deep in meditation, sat at the end of the other woman’s bed, legs folded and body faintly glowing. Shepard wondered if it was some Justicar version of rest, since the woman seemed almost to be asleep, and yet she had no doubt that if Brooks so much as breathed the wrong way, Samara would be alert again. Shepard even thought about asking EDI to entertain her, but the AI had been strangely silent. She didn’t think she’d heard EDI’s voice once since waking, which had to be some kind of record.

Then again, maybe it was only that the doctor’s full-scale quarantine extended to artificial intelligence as well.

Shepard mulled this over while she flipped idly through the copy of _The Odyssey_ someone—Garrus no doubt, back when he hadn’t been looking at her like she was some kind of Cerberus abomination—had left at her bedside. For once, however, she did not find the story soothing. She couldn’t stop thinking about how very long a decade was. She’d been out, what? A week? A couple of weeks? No one would say, but it couldn’t have been all that long. And yet the whole landscape of her life had shifted. How unfamiliar had Odysseus’ world been, after ten years away from it? Uneasiness twisting her stomach into knots, she left Odysseus strapped to a mast listening to the sirens, and picked up the other book. 

This was an even more curious choice, a battered old copy of Lewis Carroll’s _Through the Looking Glass_. Turning the pages slowly, she wondered where it had come from. Her well-loved, dog-eared copy of _The Odyssey_ she recognized at once, but this was not a familiar book, and though Shepard was certain she’d read it in her childhood, she hardly remembered the story at all.

A child had scribbled colors onto the black and white illustrations with a careless hand, heedless of lines or subject matter. Sometimes Alice’s hair was red, sometimes dark. Whole pictures were lost to angry black scribbles. None of the chess pieces were either white _or_ red. Still, with nothing else to occupy her time, Shepard read through it from beginning to end, and felt even more unsettled afterward than she had when attempting Homer. _Life, what is it but a dream?_ asked the final line of the poem that closed the book, and Shepard wasn’t sure she could answer. Wasn’t sure she _wanted_ to.

A nightmare, forgotten on waking, but leaving lingering anxiety in its wake?

Setting the book down, she opened her mouth to ask Chakwas if there was anything else she could read—hell, she’d tackle dry operating manuals or old mission reports or outdated medical journals at this point—but the doctor was folded over her desk, head cushioned on her arms, her heavy breathing almost a snore. Shepard tilted her head and cleared her throat, but the doctor didn’t so much as shift. Neither, Shepard noted, did Samara.

Inhaling deeply, Shepard slowly lifted her shoulders. Her clavicle ached, but in a recently-healed rather than a still-broken way. A roll of her affected shoulder brought little pain and a bit of stiffness, but no actual protest. She smiled, giddy with success. After pushing the blankets away, she placed her palms flat at her sides next to her hips, and pressed against them, testing their strength. Here, too, her collarbone gave a twinge, but  nothing desperate enough to beg her to stop. Exhaling, she shifted her hips back an inch, and then another. It took an eternity, but eventually she was sitting entirely upright, legs straight in front of her, torso willing to hold its own weight.

The doctor still slept. Brooks still snored. Samara continued to faintly glow.

Shepard frowned at her legs, moving her knees from side to side. Like her collarbone and the curve of her spine, they didn’t feel entirely _normal_ , but the pain wasn’t devastating. She’d fought through worse, certainly. And hell, if they wouldn’t take her weight, at least she was already where she’d need to be for treatment. She snorted a little laugh, knowing very well what Chakwas would say to that. It would involve a lot of swear words, probably. British ones. And a great deal of glowering. Bedside manner would go right out the airlock.

And still, the risk was worth it.

It took some maneuvering not only to lower the bedrail, but to extricate herself from the various wires and tubes attaching her to the nearby machinery without having them set off a plethora of medical alarms. At the end of it she was breathing heavily, her brow prickling with embarrassing sweat. Her heart raced in her chest as though she’d been running sprints in heavy gear, not merely trying to wrestle a medical cot into submission. Leaning against the raised backrest, she took slow, even breaths until her heart no longer thudded and her inhales no longer sounded akin to gasps. 

Turning her face to dry the last of her sweat against the thin pillow, she saw the medbay door slide open on a soft hiss. She held her breath, waiting to see who was willing to risk the doctor’s wrath. 

No one entered. A moment later, the doors slid closed again and Shepard swallowed the bitterness of her disappointment.

Her resolve remained firmly in place. 

With a little more force than strictly necessary, she flung her right leg toward the edge of the bed and nearly went tumbling over the side in pure shock when a voice—a flanged turian voice; a _female_ turian voice—behind her said, “Oh, I don’t think you want to try that.”

Shepard reached for the remaining bedrail and swung around with enough force to raise a real protest from her ribs. A turian woman in a wheelchair sat on the other side of her bed, leaning on one bent arm, expression caught somewhere between amusement and incredulity. Shepard opened her mouth, shook her head, and closed her mouth again. The turian’s laugh was low and quiet and enough like Garrus’ that Shepard would’ve recognized a resemblance even without the distinctive facial markings to serve as a bright blue clue.

“I’ve, uh, had a peek at your file,” the newcomer continued mildly, almost as though they knew each other. Shepard let herself wonder whether this, too, was merely something she’d forgotten. But surely, _surely_ she’d remember meeting Garrus’ _family_. “With fractures like those, there’s no way your legs are ready to take your weight. You’ll only break them both all over again and have to start back where you began.”

Shepard blinked, cocking her head. “But where did you—I didn’t see anyone come in.”

The turian smiled, did something with her free hand, and vanished. Even without a visor to help her, Shepard was able to make out the faint shimmer at the edges of the tactical cloak, but only because she was looking for it, and only because she knew what she was supposed to see. “Nice,” she admitted. “You modded the chair?”

The cloak dropped. “And you’ve managed to pull all your wires without tripping an alarm. You must be unstoppable with an omni-tool.”

“Don’t remind me.” Then she leaned over the rail as far as her aching body would allow and extended her hand. “I’m Shepard. Sorry if I didn’t greet you properly before. Evidently I wasn’t entirely… well. You must be Solana. Welcome to the _Normandy_.”

Solana perched on the edge of her seat and shook Shepard’s hand once, firmly. Even though the turian woman’s eyes weren’t blue, something in their calculating expression put Shepard in mind of Garrus when he was trying to puzzle through a problem. “You don’t remember meeting me?”

“Afraid not.”

“But you remember… everything else?”

Shepard shrugged helplessly. “Evidently I don’t, though no one’s telling me much about the time I was out. I remember… parts of the final push, but nothing afterward.”

“And—” Solana stopped abruptly, glancing around the room. Shepard watched her gaze sweep past the sleeping doctor and sedated Brooks twice before returning to her. “Sorry, you’re _awake_ and my brother’s not here? Does he know?”

Shepard tried to smile, but couldn’t manage it. She was pretty sure whatever her face was doing didn’t look like amusement. Fair enough. She wasn’t feeling particularly amused. She only hoped she didn’t look quite as sick as she felt. “I was planning the jailbreak for a reason. I figured if he wouldn’t come to me…”

Mouth still slightly agape, Solana only shook her head. “Unbelievable. _Unbelievable._ ” Maneuvering the wheelchair until it was wedged between Shepard’s bed and the one next to it, Solana pushed herself up onto her good leg, using a grip on the other bed’s rail for balance. “Well, come on then,” Solana insisted. “You can’t walk, but you can take the chair if you think your arms will hold up?” Shepard nodded. “Good. Fine. I’ll explain things to the doctor when she wakes.” Solana sent a fond look over her shoulder. Shepard echoed it. Chakwas was definitely snoring now, each exhale pushing a fallen lock of hair away from her face, and each inhale pulling it back to her parted lips again.

“If she’s pissed, you can always claim I stole it,” Shepard offered. Her legs ached as she dangled them over the side of the bed, and she realized Solana was right: they weren’t ready to hold her weight. Soon, maybe, but not yet. Still holding onto the railing for balance, Solana reached over and lowered the cot until Shepard only had to shuffle sideways into the wheelchair, supported by her arms. She wheeled herself backward and was relieved when her shoulder and collarbone seemed willing to accept the new strain she was putting on them. “She’d probably believe it.”

Solana snorted a little laugh. “She probably would.” Then she paused, giving Shepard another of those long, intense, unnerving stares she was starting to think of as Vakarianesque. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Shepard.”

“Likewise,” Shepard replied, and was gratified when the stare shifted sideways into a genuine smile.

Strange, how affecting a _smile_ could be when it seemed an eternity since she’d last seen one.

#

It felt as incomprehensibly bizarre to sit outside her own quarters, hesitating before entering, as it had felt to glide through the hallways of the crew deck strapped into a wheelchair and hidden under a tactical cloak. Not, however, that there’d been many people from which to hide; evidently the _Normandy_ wasn’t running with a full complement. She tried not to think too hard about what this might mean in terms of potential casualties. The mess was empty, and she came around the corner just in time to see Kaidan leave the elevator and stride down the hallway toward the observation deck. She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped herself, unwilling to see herself carted back to the medbay before having a chance to speak with Garrus.

Before she could second-guess herself, she clapped her palm to the door’s panel hard enough to make her already-abused shoulder throb in protest.

Garrus sat at her desk, back to the door, hunched over a datapad. It brought a smile to her lips to see proof of his presence scattered about on the surfaces. For months she’d told him to make himself at home—“My ridiculously oversized quarters are your ridiculously oversized quarters,”—and for months he’d slipped in and out of these rooms without leaving so much as a ration-bar wrapper behind.

Her eyes filled with tears she refused to shed when she saw all her fish were alive—even the stupid eel who scorned the VI’s attentions. Odie was safe in his little glass box on the shelf behind Garrus’ head. He squeaked when he noticed her and hid. Bless him.

“Not right now, Solana,” Garrus muttered without looking up. He swore under his breath and for a moment Shepard thought he was going to hurl the datapad in his hands straight through her glass case of model ships. “I’ve tried every damned cipher I can think of. I’ve run every damned decryption program. And we’re still no closer to figuring out the contents of the messages the _Empire_ sent. Or where they went. Or what they might mean.”

“You know, if you’d fill me in and let me have an omni-tool, I could probably help with that.”

Whatever reaction she’d been expecting it certainly wasn’t staring down the barrel of Garrus’ pistol with more than six and a half feet of bristling, enraged turian behind it. Without dropping her gaze, she lifted her empty hands. “Garrus,” she said, “it’s me.”

“That’s my sister’s chair.”

“It is. She let me borrow it. I was going to try and walk.”

He lowered his gun, but didn’t, she noticed, put it entirely away.

“You know me,” she said, with a hint of challenge. His mandibles flicked; good, he heard it. “I’m patient until I’m not. And she did _offer._ ”

His mandibles flicked again, this time in irritation. “You’re injured.”

“And you’re avoiding me. What did you expect me to do?”

He shook his head and settled back in the chair, spinning it so they were facing each other. Leaning forward, he planted his elbows on his knees, hands dangling between them. The right still held the pistol. She let herself consider how much effort it would take to divest him of it, but didn’t act; right now, at least, he was faster than she, and she had no desire to see the muzzle of it pointed at her forehead again.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “Am I a clone?”

“No,” he replied, too quickly, not meeting her eyes.

“But you’re _afraid_ I might be.”

It wasn’t a question. He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“What happened to, ‘You’re real. A little bit crazy, maybe, but real’?”

He flinched as though she’d struck him.

“Garrus,” she said, not even trying to keep the plea from the word.

His gaze flicked to hers before dropping again; she wondered what secrets about her his visor revealed. Her heart rate was certainly elevated. Hell, he could probably _hear_ that much. Still he said nothing, and she had no visor to speak about his state. Even the language the lines of his body spoke told her little more than he was tired and he was sad and he would not let her help him.

Wheeling herself a little closer, almost close enough for their knees to touch, she leaned down slowly and wrapped her hand around the wrist of the hand still holding the gun. He tried to pull away, but she tightened her hold. Not enough to hurt, not enough for him to unseat her, but enough for him to realize she was serious.

“Shepard…”

Using her name was something, anyway. Not enough, but something.

Shoulder aching, she lifted his arm. His fingers spasmed around the handle of the pistol, but he didn’t raise it. For a moment she thought he was going to drop it entirely. She kept her grip firm, unyielding.

She swallowed hard, trying in vain to moisten a suddenly dry throat. “If you think I’m—if I’m compromised, if I’m a threat to you, to the crew, to the _Normandy_ —”

“Shepard—”

“We don’t lie to each other,” she insisted, cursing the way her voice broke on the final word.

He met her eyes then, and she almost wished he hadn’t. The grief in his was palpable, a more visceral punch to the gut than anything a fist might have done in its place. She leaned forward until the gun touched her breastbone, the muzzle centered on the thudding heart beneath. One breath. Two. Three.

Garrus’ free hand covered her gripping fingers before gently prying them away. Then he reached back and dropped the pistol onto the desk and turned back to face her again.

This time their knees did touch. And his hand didn’t leave hers, his long fingers curled around her shorter, slenderer ones.

But grief and distress still thrummed in his subharmonics—even she could tell that much—when he said quietly, “The truth is? The truth is… I don’t know, Shepard. I don’t know.”

“I guess that’s a start,” she replied, and for once didn’t try to hold back the tears that fell when she closed her eyes.


	27. The Roots that Clutch

The tears startled him, but the way Shepard smiled a wry, self-deprecating little smile and scrubbed the back of her free hand over her damp cheeks undid some of the strangeness inherent in her letting him see her cry. Her expression seemed to apologize as if he—he, of all people—might judge her or think her weak for the momentary slip of the Commander Shepard mask.

It was so convincing. Like brightly-colored socks and stacks of buttered toast for breakfast, it was precisely what he’d have _said_ Shepard would do, and the expression was exactly the one he’d have imagined Shepard making.

It wasn’t enough. His _I don’t know_ hung between them, heavy with truth.

She looked like Shepard. Sounded like Shepard. The hand curled in his felt like Shepard’s hand, right down to the familiar calluses and the slightly crooked bend in her first finger left from a break when she was young. Hell, underneath the too-clean, antiseptic medical stink, she even smelled like Shepard. If this face had never looked past him with blank eyes and said, “The turian’s making me uneasy,” he’d never have doubted. It wouldn’t have occurred to him to doubt. He’d have believed it was Shepard as surely as he’d believed when he looked down his scope on Omega and, against all odds, saw a dead woman sprinting through a firefight toward him.

 Much as it pained him to make the distinction—and Spirits, it did— _wanting_ to believe wasn’t the _certainty_ of belief. He wanted to make a quip about this being the hell he was always threatening to follow her into, something about the impossibility of avoiding _just like old times_ even after wars ended and everything was supposed to be settled. In the weeks on that damned jungle planet, this was precisely the best possible outcome scenario he’d only let himself imagine when he was exhausted and alone and Alenko wasn’t pestering him about closure and memorial services.

And he couldn’t do it. Because in the back of his brain doubt scratched, saying _what if, what if, what if._

Shepard’s fingers squeezed his briefly. Her gaze slipped down to look at their joined hands and touching knees. He watched the play of emotions across her face. Then she said, “I’m starting to understand, I think. I might not get the headshot, but will you let me shoot to see if I can hit the target?” Her smile turned sad. “One day I suppose we’ll have to move on from the gun metaphors, but not quite yet.” She lifted her eyebrows, her expressive human eyebrows he knew how to read better than any other eyebrows in the galaxy. Shepard’s eyebrows. Shepard’s expressions. Right now she was asking a question. His throat still hurt from speaking the last words, so he only nodded and tried to ignore the way his visor told him her heart was still stuttering along a little too fast. Not dangerously. Just… worried. The nerves she never let creep onto her face. Commander Shepard’s poker face, best in the galaxy. Shepard’s emotions just under the surface, bared to the visor. And his understanding of her.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the way she always did when she was gathering her thoughts or preparing to make one of her speeches. In through the nose, out through the mouth. This, he suspected, was not going to be a speech. This wasn’t going to be _hold the line_ or _we face our enemy together, and together we will defeat them._ Neither of them knew who their enemies _were_. Hell, right now he was afraid _she_ was his enemy. Perhaps she feared the same, in reverse. It certainly wasn’t the kind of thing people made speeches about. How did you hold the line against nothing more substantial than shadows and fears and whispers in the dark? 

Her hand twitched in his, this time involuntarily. When she opened her eyes, though, she was composed and they were dry. The determination was all Shepard, too. Picture perfect. “The ship’s not running a full crew. Your sister’s on board, but not your father?” She raised this into a question and waited for the shake of his head before continuing on, “No one’s in any kind of uniform. Kaidan’s wearing civvies, for God’s sake. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him out of Alliance blue. Everything looks a little battered around the edges, so I’m guessing the _Normandy_ ’s overdue for some serious time in dry-dock. Whatever mission she’s running, it was important enough to send her out with a bit of a limp. Hackett?”

He nodded. Her eyes rolled and the very faintest of smiles pulled at her lips. “Yeah, well, when isn’t it the good admiral?” She looked away from him briefly, through the glass case of model ships. Not seeing them, he thought. Thinking. “You’ve got the command?”

He didn’t have to say anything. “Of course,” she mused, almost to herself. “If Admiral Hackett knows _anything_ —and he does—he knows how to play to the strengths of his subordinates. So, the mission was to retrieve me. Who else was he going to trust to do what needed to be done? I’d’ve given you the command, too.”

Her weariness pained him. It was all too familiar, an echo of the Shepard she’d been at the end of the war, constantly drained and unwilling to rest for fear the rest would mean more lives lost, more failure. “Shepard.”

Her eyes glittered as she swung her head back, and the line of her shoulders was tense beneath the medical gown she wore. The new scar pulling at the right side of her face only added to the fierceness. _How,_ he thought to himself, despairing, _if she’s not herself, how could they get her so right?_

“But that’s when things start to fall apart,” she admitted. “That’s where I start treading water. I don’t have enough information to make educated guesses, and without information I’m just taking shots in the dark. Liable to hit someone. And you know that’s not how I work. First argument we ever had. Not taking the shot when the hostage might get hurt, right?”

Keeping his subharmonics as neutral as he could, he asked, “What exactly do you want to know?”

She snorted. “What _don’t_ I want to know? I’m working at a real disadvantage here, big guy. I want to know why you’re wound tighter than I’ve seen you since—in a long, long time. I want to know what code you’re trying to break, and why. Hell, I want to know why you’re wearing your backup armor instead of your primary gear. I want to know why you don’t trust me.” Her face didn’t show the cost of these words, but her blood pressure did. His mandibles flared in sympathy. Regret, maybe. She sighed when he didn’t offer any of the answers she wanted. “How long was I gone?” With a ghost of black humor she added, “Please don’t say two years.”

He huffed a breath caught somewhere between a gasp of horror and a bleak laugh. “The final push on Earth was two months ago. The _Normandy_ … went down, after you did whatever you did. Spent a few weeks grounded. Headed back to Earth. Hackett sent us out again.” _Things went to hell._ “We found you almost two weeks ago. You weren’t yourself.” 

Her mouth twisted as though she’d bitten into something sour. “Seems like maybe I’m not the only one. What was that, down there? With Brooks?”

Garrus stiffened, parsing her words for accusation. He could tell she didn’t exactly _approve_ , but she wasn’t calling him out or upbraiding him, either. “She had it coming.”

“Garrus.”

He ran a hand down his fringe and then scratched the side of his neck.

“Look,” Shepard said quietly, “I don’t like her any more than you do. I just want to know what the hell she’s doing on my—the— _this_ ship. With Samara of all people on guard duty? How did that even happen?”

He tried to keep his face expressionless, but whatever she saw brought a deep crease to her brow. “You know,” she said mildly, her conversational tone completely at odds with the hardness of her gaze, “I’m starting to understand how you felt when you were still with C-Sec, investigating Saren. _Classified_ is a bitch of a word when you’re used to access.”

She shifted in her chair, her knees knocking into his, and winced, putting her free hand to her ribs and running them lightly along her side until she could rub at her back. She’d probably been sitting too long, he realized; the bruised spine wasn’t completely healed. She glared at him, as if daring him to comment on her weakened state. Wisely, he did not.

“Garrus,” she said, quiet, almost tender in a way that made his stomach twist, “I wouldn’t trust me, either. Don’t beat yourself up about it.” She pulled her hand from his and rubbed both hands up and down her arms before wrapping herself in a kind of solitary embrace. “If I’m… if I’m not _me_ , then I’m some kind of sleeper agent. Or another clone. If I… you’re right to be wary. I can’t tell what I don’t know. So it’s better if I don’t know much. You’re doing exactly what I would do in your place. I can hardly fault you for it.”

He was spared having to answer by the crackle of the comm, and Chakwas’ voice ringing too-loud through the cabin, “Is Shepard up there?” No pleasantries, no preamble; she sounded frantic.

“I’m here,” Shepard replied. “And I’m fine.”

Garrus heard the lie and wondered if Chakwas recognized it, too.

“Garrus and I needed to have a chat,” Shepard continued with false cheer. “He wasn’t coming to me, so I figured I had to take matters into my own hands.”

Chakwas muttered a handful of unintelligible swear words under her breath before continuing, “Shepard, you are not well. I must _insist_ you return to the medbay at once.”

“Ahh,” Shepard mused, “I’m somewhat out of the chain of command at the moment, Doctor. Ship’s not running Alliance colors, and I may be mostly ignorant of the shit that’s hit the fan in the past couple of months but I’m pretty sure I’ve still got Spectre status to fall back on. If it’s all the same to you, I’d much rather stay here. At least until Garrus asks me to leave.”

Somehow it was this—the idea that he might ask her to leave the space that had always been _hers_ —that made him question his certainty. He was about to say she was, of course, welcome to _her own cabin_ when, tinny with distance, Solana’s voice came over the comm. “I really would like my chair back at some point.”

“Your sister’s a bloody menace, Garrus,” Chakwas griped. “She should know I’m of a mind _not_ to give her a new leg. God knows the trouble she could get into with full mobility. Of all the bloody irresponsible—”

“Hey, sorry, Doctor. I know berating me is important—and I do feel the sting of your disapprobation, I assure you, but… Garrus? Did, you, uh… one of these books came with Shepard from the _Empire_ , right? The thinner one?”

“ _Through the Looking Glass_ ,” Shepard supplied.

“Yeah,” Garrus added, glancing slantwise at her. Definitely Shepard’s thinking expression. Tinged with something he couldn’t quite name. “I assumed they gave it to her to fill the time, since they’d left her with nothing electronic.”

“How closely did you look at it?”

He blinked, his mandibles pulling tight to his face. “I… didn’t. Translation software doesn’t work so well on non-electronic interfaces. Ran a scan to make sure it was clean and not rigged with micro-filament explosives. Or helpful DNA.”

Softly, almost under her breath, Shepard said, “Only _you_ would think a book might be filled with micro-filament explosives.”

Garrus glowered at her, and when she grinned, things were almost right between them. Then he swallowed and looked away. “Why?”

“Because someone’s colored in the drawings.”

“A kid who didn’t understand _lines_ ,” Shepard said, smiling. “Or staying within them. It’s an aesthetic offense, but hardly a criminal one.”

“I don’t care about bad art,” Solana said. “But if this was done by a kid, it was one who knew the turian alphabet.”

“ _What_?” Shepard and Garrus spoke the word at the same time, in very nearly the same tone. This time no smiles accompanied the glance of solidarity they shared.

“There are definitely turian letters hidden in these scribbles. They don’t look anything like these human letters, and they’re far, far too distinct to be some kind of coincidence.”

“Words?” Garrus asked, already rising to his feet. “Numbers?”

“If it’s a message, it’s an encoded one. Except—damn. Garrus, you have to see this. I flipped the book, reading the turian way instead of human? The first word is clear. And it’s _Archangel._ ”

“Take it to EDI,” Shepard said. “I doubt she’s limited by requiring an electronic interface for translation.”

He didn’t know if they were all caught too off-guard to speak, but the sudden silence was unbearable. Garrus was the one to break it. “EDI’s gone, Shepard. She, uh, went offline when the Crucible fired. Haven’t been able to get her back. Yet.”

Shepard went pale. Colorless. For a moment, he thought she was going to turn her head and vomit; he watched her throat work, swallowing over and over and over. Her hands spasmed and she clutched at the arms of the wheelchair. All questions of trust and believability and veracity temporarily abandoned in the face of her distress, Garrus dropped to his knees beside her.

“Is she seizing?” Chakwas demanded, the intercom doing nothing to erase the panic. “This is precisely why she wasn’t ready to—”

“No,” Shepard choked out. “No, I’m—sorry. I… _shit._ ”

Garrus read out the biofeedback stats his visor gave him, more to soothe the doctor than because he wanted to speak them aloud. He didn’t tell Chakwas how Shepard was shaking, or that her hands still clenched the arms of the wheelchair so hard the metal and plastic creaked. He feared her bones were doing the same. “Look, doc, I’ll—I’m going to—I’ll get you back on the comm if anything changes. Need some privacy here for a minute.”

He heard Chakwas give her assent—reluctantly, he thought—but he was already focused entirely on the woman in front of him.

“Shepard,” he murmured, putting a hand to her cheek and guiding her inward-turned gaze to meet him. This time her eyes weren’t filled with tears. Ghosts, perhaps. The whites were visible around her entire iris, and she bit her bottom lip so hard the dry skin cracked and bled again. He was close enough to smell the faint metallic scent of it. Shepard’s grief. Oh, Spirits, whatever else they’d done to her, it was Shepard’s grief.

“The geth, too.” It wasn’t a question.

“You remember?”

She nodded. Once, twice. As though her head weighed too much for her neck to hold. He watched her age a decade in the space of a few heartbeats.

“I had to make a choice.” Her voice sounded wrong, strange and disconnected, as though she were speaking after a very long illness and couldn’t quite make her lips form the right shapes. Shell-shocked, maybe; he thought that was the human term. The turians called it battle-broken. Every protective instinct flared in him, begged him to beg her to stop speaking. And he didn’t. Because right now she was Commander Shepard and this was a report he knew she had to give and he knew he had to hear. “They were…” She chuckled a mirthless laugh. “They were all bullshit. No reason to trust some ancient AI who’d, by its own admission, been screwing around with the natural order of things for cycle after cycle after _cycle._ ” She tapped a single finger to her forehead hard enough to leave a pink impression of her fingertip in its wake. “Manipulative piece of shit, too. Showed up looking like a dead kid. One of the last things I saw before—I _dreamed_ about—it doesn’t matter. I didn’t know what to think. Maybe that I’d finally been indoctrinated. Hell, I’d been shot. Bad.” Her hand touched her side as though feeling the memory of that wound, that pain. “Thought maybe I was already dead. Remember being pissed I couldn’t even die in peace, after all that.” Her eyes lost focus for a minute; he brought her back to herself by dragging his thumb along her cheekbone.

After a rough moment, a shuddering breath—definitely no speeches here—she continued in the same numb, distant voice, “All the options were terrible, and there I was, watching thousands die, cruiser after cruiser, dreadnought after dreadnought, Earth burning below them. Massive viewports. Front row seats for the end of the world. End of the galaxy, I guess. End of everything. _You have to choose,_ it said. I almost shot the goddamned thing in the face, you know? But…” She brought one hand up to his, desperate as a drowning woman clutching at a lifeline. “I had orders. I had my orders. And my orders were always clear. _Destroy the Reapers_. Not… not… after all the things I knew, after all the things I _saw_ , and they—it—whatever the hell it was—wanted to cut a _deal_? No way. No fucking way. So I chose to destroy the bastards even though I was warned it might… might affect more than them. Anything with Reaper code, I think. Synthetic life. It had all been touched by that code.” Another bead of blood welled on her lip. She pulled it away with the tip of her tongue and grimaced. “Ruthless calculus, right? Kill ten billion here to save twenty billion over there? I— _fuck_. I hoped it was bluffing.” Finger by finger she lifted her remaining hand from its deathly grip on the wheelchair. She folded both hands in her lap. He watched her rebuilding her armor piece by piece, out of spare parts and scrap. It couldn’t hold. It couldn’t possibly hold.

“Shepard,” he whispered. “Are you—”

“No,” she stated. Hard. Cold. Absolute. Shepard’s certainty. “You’re right, Garrus. I wouldn’t trust me, either.”

This, though, was _Shepard_. Wordless, he rose to his feet and took hold of her chair. The Commander Shepard mask betrayed nothing. Behind it, Garrus knew she was mourning.

“Come on,” he said, heading for the door. “Let’s see if we can’t break this code.”


	28. Perceived the Scene

Solana released her anxiously-held breath when the medbay door opened and her brother didn’t enter alone. The relief, however, was short-lived. Human faces were still a challenge for her to read—all those malleable parts combined in a seemingly infinite and confusing number of ways—but Solana didn’t need to be an expert to understand that the woman Garrus guided into the room wasn’t the same one she had cheerfully loaned her wheelchair to in the first place. Nor, however, had she regressed back to the earlier empty-eyed amnesiac.

Solana rather suspected this iteration of Shepard—pale and drawn but with a set jaw and fierce fire in her eyes—was the Shepard of the newsvids and overblown myths, the woman who’d almost singlehandedly pulled the galaxy from the brink of destruction by pure determination and sheer force of will. Even hobbled and confined by injury, this Shepard was one Solana had no desire to cross. If even half the stories were even partly true, this was the Shepard who’d head-butted krogan, brokered peace between some of the most fractious races in the galaxy, and fought thresher maws and Reapers. On foot.

Strange, though, that the hero was the one who seemed loneliest of all, even with Garrus at her back. Solana supposed this was also the Shepard who’d made the calls that sent thousands— _millions_ —to their deaths. Not a comfortable weight for anyone to carry. Even a woman as capable as Commander Shepard.

Even shuttered as he was evidently trying to keep it, Garrus’ face was an open book to Solana, and everything she read there only confused her further. Perhaps unadulterated joy and reconciliation had been a bit much to hope for, but her brother—if possible—looked even worse than he had _before_. A hundred different proverbs attested to the indomitability of the turian spirit, but Garrus’ expression proved even the most valiant warrior could meet with defeat. If Shepard’s eyes were fiery, Garrus’ were cold. They burned in a different way. A worse way. For a moment, Solana was convinced a stranger looked out at her from behind her brother’s eyes and she barely contained the shudder that shook her spine, not holding her brother’s gaze any longer than necessary.

Solana expected Shepard to take the lead, but the commander said nothing, leaving it to Garrus to cross the room and retrieve the book Solana still held clasped in her hands while the doctor, in turn, fussed. Shepard bore it stoically, even sparing Dr. Chakwas a brief smile. Evidently she passed muster; the doctor’s examination was thorough but brief.

Garrus turned the book over once, twice, and as clearly as she saw his frustration and his distress, Solana now saw regret. And, more disturbingly, guilt. If Shepard hadn’t been sitting so near and watching so closely, Solana would have insisted the oversight wasn’t his fault. Hell, she’d have reached out and comforted him, not that he’d have accepted her comfort even if they had no audience at all. She couldn’t even think of a joke or a quip to break the tension, so she merely folded her hands in her lap and waited for her brother’s questions. Or rage. Both felt equally inevitable.

Garrus turned the volume until he was looking at it turian-style, reading top to bottom, right to left. She suspected he didn’t even hear the low growl in his subharmonics as he saw the symbols spelling out _Archangel_ in turian script. Still Solana said nothing. Still _Shepard_ said nothing. Garrus flipped through the pages agonizingly slowly, pausing every time he spotted another letter or number. Finally, he closed the book again and shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. One word and a bunch of nonsense?”

“Code?” Solana offered, though the waver of uncertainty in her subharmonics said she’d had no luck breaking it. Garrus’ expression darkened even further. “I thought maybe… C-Sec? Something I’m not familiar with, anyway.”

“Codes,” Garrus spat. Solana blinked at the virulence. Behind Garrus, Shepard closed her eyes and bowed her head, as though the violence of the word had reached out and struck her. Garrus didn’t see it. By the time her brother turned, Shepard’s eyes were once again open and her chin once again lifted.

“Is it a message or a warning, though?” Shepard asked. Even the tenor of her voice was different—firmer, harder—and Solana’s mandibles fluttered with surprise. Shepard glanced at her long enough to smile a very small smile that vanished almost as quickly as it pulled at her lips, and Solana was left with the uncomfortable realization that the human was far, far better at reading turian expressions than vice versa. “Perhaps your former identity’s not _quite_ as secret as it once was, but it’s still not exactly common knowledge. Either it’s a friend who knows you—and knew Archangel—or it’s a very well-informed enemy.” Shepard’s lips twitched again, quenching a little of the heat in her eyes with the briefest hint of mirth. “We have plenty of enemies, but most aren’t particularly clever about it.”

“Cerberus?” Garrus asked, grimacing. “Would it stand without the Illusive Man? I mean, well enough to organize something like this?”

Shepard lifted one shoulder and leaned forward, resting her forearms against her legs. Her limbs, to Solana’s eyes, looked impossibly fragile. “The dog did have three heads.”

“Huh?” Solana didn’t realize she was the one who’d spoken until both Shepard and Garrus turned to look at her. She kicked her one good leg weakly. “Dog?”

Shepard didn’t smile. A line creased her forehead. Still, her tone was patient as she explained, “Yeah. Old human myth. Cerberus was the three-headed dog who guarded the Underworld. Could be the Illusive Man was only the centermost head.”

Solana tilted her head. “Strange name for a human terrorist group.”

“Not really,” Shepard said. “It was the self-proclaimed guardian of human interests. Of course, speaking of Underworlds, Cerberus is also a prime example of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. However they started, things got really dark, really fast.” She scrubbed her palms down the front of her medical gown.

Garrus said quietly, “You used _them_ , Shepard.”

Even to Solana’s untrained ears, the sigh Shepard uttered plainly said this was an old argument. “We used each other. It is what it is. Even—even without EDI, there’s probably enough information in the ship’s computer to attempt to run that code against anything of Cerberus’ we had access to. They’ll have changed up in the last year, of course—”

“But it’s worth trying,” Garrus finished wearily. “It’s just… usually a cipher adheres to some kind of internal code, you know? Whatever this is seems… wrong, somehow. Backward. I mean, even aside from finding turian script in a human book.”

Startling as a burst of summer rain, Shepard tilted her head back, sending a brilliant grin in Garrus’ direction. Even he seemed taken aback. For a moment, Solana saw the ghost of the brother she faintly remembered in the startled openness of his expression. “Backward,” Shepard declared, her voice as bright as her expression, almost laughing. “Of course. Garrus, I don’t think an _enemy_ left that clue.”

He rubbed his free hand along his neck and shifted his weight, almost nervous, from foot to foot. “I’m not following, Shepard.”

“ _Through the Looking Glass_ ,” she said, still practically bouncing with excitement. Solana’d never seen such a swift change in demeanor; this Shepard wasn’t the lonely hero. She was the clever tactician, the kind of giddy maniac Solana had always pictured her brother ending up with. Granted, she’d always pictured a _turian_ giddy maniac, but she wasn’t about to be fussy. A little of the ice in Garrus’ eyes cracked. Not completely, but enough to give Solana hope that her brother might completely thaw again someday. “It’s _backward_ ,” Shepard continued. “A looking glass is a mirror. Someone was counting on you and I working together.” Strangely, this stole Shepard’s smile, leaving her deflated again. “Or… or at least someone was counting on you working with _someone_ human. They took care to leave the _Archangel_ where you’d find it—”

“Except I didn’t—” 

Shepard shook her head, speaking over him. “You’d have seen it eventually. But it’s a two part cipher. The rest of the message wouldn’t make sense if you didn’t have someone to translate the English for you. May I?”

Garrus dropped the book into her waiting hand; Solana didn’t miss the way he was careful not to brush his fingers against Shepard’s. Pulling her mandibles tight to her cheeks, she tried to make sense of his reserve, but found she couldn’t. Later. Without an audience. She’d ask later. Although she had her doubts that he’d open up to her, even if she begged. Shepard’s shoulders sank for a moment, and then she covered the slump with fevered movement, turning the book the human way and turning the pages. Lifting it, she pointed at a scribble. “This is the letter M. Stylized, maybe. Hidden, almost definitely. But now that I know what I’m looking for? Sure.” She flipped a few more pages, pointing out other letters, and a couple of numbers. “On their own, they don’t make sense. We have to make a list, see if we can marry the two sets into a cohesive whole. I have a hunch mirroring is going to come into it somehow. I want to guess that it’s some kind of password. Maybe it’s even the code you need to break the—”

“The code we need for the _Empire_ ’s messages,” Garrus interrupted. Shepard nodded as he paced to one side of the medbay and back again. “Damn, Shepard. But… who?”

“Well, if it’s Cerberus, it could be someone who agreed with me instead of the Illusive Man, but stayed in their place? Miranda must’ve kept contacts within the organization.” Shepard snorted. “She might’ve burned the main bridge, but she always had a half-dozen other escape routes planned, I think.”

All three of them jerked as the asari, Samara—Solana still couldn’t _quite_ believe the woman was a genuine Justicar—spoke, “But Miranda is missing in action.” The woman unfolded herself from her seated position at the end of the farthest bed. No part of her movement was wasted or extraneous; Solana couldn’t quite swallow down the wide-eyed wonder. “Which is why Dr. T’Soni sent me, and my charge.”

“Oh,” Shepard said, pinching the bridge of her nose with the hand not holding the book. “That… makes a kind of backward sense, I suppose. Especially if you thought—think—I might be a clone. Brooks at least has experience putting a clone back together again.”

“Brooks has experience training a clone to do her bidding,” Samara amended. “I am afraid the two are not one and the same. As you appear to have returned to yourself, I fear I should remove her before she might cause more trouble.”

Shepard’s blunt white teeth bit down on her full bottom lip even as she shook her head. “We’re not all convinced I’ve returned to myself.”

“Garrus—” Solana began, without thinking, but Shepard was the one who stopped her.

“Not just Garrus. But even _if_ it were only him… I’ve had his eyes at my six for a long time, Solana. If he thinks something’s off, then I trust his assessment.”

The asari’s expression was even harder to read than Shepard’s. Solana couldn’t make sense of it at all. After several long, silent moments, the bowed head was unambiguous enough. “As you wish, Shepard.”

Shepard lifted her hands. “Garrus has command of the _Normandy_. I stand by that decision. It’s his call.”

They were interrupted by a brief crackle over the comm preceding Specialist Traynor’s smooth voice, faintly harried, saying, “Garrus? Sir, I’ve… I’ve Admiral Hackett on vidcom. Shall I… delay?”

Shepard looked to Garrus. Hopefully, Solana thought. Her brother’s expression had gone cool again, the ice hardening. 

“Give me a second, Traynor. A private second, if you can.” The link cracked again as Traynor disconnected. Garrus glanced at their faces; Solana saw his eyes linger on Shepard’s, clearly weighing some data points Solana didn’t have access to. After a deep inhale and an even slower exhale, Garrus admitted, “My father suspects someone in the admiral’s organization. Perhaps—perhaps even the admiral himself.”

The fire kindled again in Shepard’s eyes. “All the more reason to speak to him, then. He might be caught off-guard if he’s not expecting me.” She stopped, touching her fingertips briefly to her mouth before lowering her hand again. When she spoke again, her voice was deeper. Sadder, maybe. “If you’ll permit it, sir. This is your call, too.”

Her brother’s subharmonics were painfully strained as he said, “Shepard… you don’t have to—”

“You really should have a rank, though,” Shepard continued, almost blithely. If not for the way her hands clutched the wheelchair’s arms, Solana might actually have been convinced. “Commander Vakarian? Captain? Or are _you_ an admiral now, with all those saluting generals? Admiral Vakarian has a nice ring. Almost as good as Primarch. Though I assume Victus still holds his seat.” She wiggled her eyebrows strangely, but the gesture made Garrus laugh, so Solana figured it had some meaning she just really didn’t understand. She wondered, though, if Shepard knew Garrus’ voice well enough to hear the discomfort beneath the laugh.

“You’re right about one thing,” Garrus finally said.

“Yeah?” Shepard interrupted. “You that close to the Primarch’s seat after all, Vakarian?”

He glowered, but with a hint of playfulness that made Solana’s heart twist. “Definitely not right about that. You’re right that Hackett’ll never see you coming. If he’s… if there’s something going on with him, he might be surprised enough to let the mask slip.”

Shepard’s lips twitched. “Good cop, bad cop?”

Garrus almost smiled. So close. “Only if I’m the bad cop.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Garrus touched a few controls on his omni-tool. “Traynor? Let the admiral know I’ll be right up.”

“Uh. Just you, sir?”

“As far as the admiral’s concerned, yes.”

After a slightly too-long pause, Traynor said, “Understood, sir. Ma’am.”

Shepard and Garrus exchanged a look. Solana couldn’t read that, either, but she knew they spoke volumes between them. “Well,” she said with over-exaggerated cheer, “I suppose that means you need to keep the wheelchair a little longer. I’ll just stay here and work on breaking that code and being the hero, shall I?”

Garrus grimaced. Shepard smiled. And for a moment, Solana let herself pretend she didn’t see the fire and ice burning them both from within.

 


	29. To Controlling Hands

Before they left the medbay, Shepard again activated the wheelchair’s tactical cloak. Physical sight, even augmented by his visor, revealed only the faintest shimmer on the edge of Garrus’ vision where he knew she sat, and each time he blinked he had to reorient himself as his eyes said _nope, nothing there_ and his visor called his eyes on their stupidity. He pretended it didn’t unnerve him to hear her disembodied voice emanating out from a spot that looked like just another patch of medbay floor and medbay wall. At least on the battlefield when she disappeared beneath her cloak her voice was always in his ear, and he was used to not seeing her. This was a little too much like the physical manifestation of that inner-Shepard voice who was never afraid to call him on his bullshit, except this time he was pretty sure Solana and Samara and Dr. Chakwas all heard Shepard say, “Better this way. Rather not have to explain things to every member of the crew we pass. Especially if we’re not yet certain exactly what to say.”

The words held no hint of accusation, though he couldn’t say they weren’t tinged with resignation. Again the strange double-sided blade—doubt on one edge and his unwavering belief in the owner of that voice the other—twisted in his gut. On the one hand, he wanted to insist she didn’t need to hide from her own people; on the other, from a logical standpoint her caution was entirely justified. Hope was potent. Hope snatched away after being offered too soon was so much worse than no hope at all. It was a lesson he’d learned all too well. 

Garrus caught himself uncomfortably shifting his weight from left foot to right and jerked himself back to stillness. He didn’t need to see her face to know the expression it wore. Or the expression it would have worn, if she were indeed the Shepard whose skin she so effortlessly seemed to inhabit. One part wry. One part amused. One part concerned. Entirely Shepard. Hell. Maybe Brooks and her poisoned words were only that—something foreign, a cancer eating away at him where only belief ought to have been. Perhaps he was doubting where no doubt belonged.

Perhaps he was breaking the most solid thing in his life for no better reason than the most untrustworthy woman in the galaxy had told him he ought to. 

Solana’s gaze was hot on the back of his cowl—doubtless his sister hadn’t missed the nervous shifting of his weight—and he swallowed his worries. For now, he would play it as though Shepard was _Shepard_ , and not a very good simulacrum. One woman, confined to a wheelchair and content to keep herself hidden from her own allies, was hardly a threat. Whatever else she was could wait until better minds than his took their crack at puzzling it out.

To keep up the illusion of being alone, Garrus did not help Shepard by pushing her wheelchair. His hands twitched at his sides even as he calculated how much more damage—how much more recovery time might be added—by her struggling to propel herself along with still-healing wounds. “Stop worrying,” she hissed, startling him out of his reverie. His mandibles ceased their nervous fluttering and snapped back to his cheeks.

Hastings was just entering the elevator as they approached, and when he asked her to take the next, she froze and blinked at him, jaw slightly dropped and eyes wide, as though he’d just requested she kill a defenseless infant. “I’m sorry, sir?” Beside him, Shepard’s laugh was a wheezy breath. Imagining her pressing a hand tight across her mouth to hold in the mirth—at his expense, of course—he had to hold in his own chuckle.

Spirits, it was almost as bad as reacting publicly to the Shepard who lived in his head. Garrus shifted his inappropriate laughter into a scowl, Hastings stepped away from the door and swallowed her affront, and Shepard maneuvered around them both to enter the elevator. He felt the soft sigh of her passing, and coughed to cover the sound of her wheel bumping too-loudly against the wall.

“Sir?” Hastings repeated, tilting her head and lifting her brows in a decidedly confused manner. “Are you—?”

The door slid shut, ending her query before it could be spoken.

“Real funny, Shepard.”

In the confines of the elevator the cloak shimmered and dropped and yes, sure enough there was the shit-eating smirk, just barely covering the lines of pain etched into Shepard’s brow. “I think I discovered a new favorite game,” she mused. 

“I think I just discovered I’m not above sabotaging your tactical cloak,” he remarked in kind.

It was easy, too easy, to slip into the comfort of their old roles, the no-Shepard-without-Vakarian roles, quips and one-liners traded the way others shared caresses. The smile softening her features was the private one she reserved for him. Instead of the usual contentment accompanying the intimacy of her gesture, he felt only the sinking weight of _what if_. He couldn’t figure, though, if it was _what if she’s just back to her normal self_ or _what if they’ve engineered—trained? brainwashed?—a clone who knows how to play Shepard well enough to steal even this? What if I can’t tell the difference?_

Shepard reached out and ran the back of her fingers along the back of his, so swiftly it could almost have been an accident. Then the elevator announced the floor, and Shepard vanished behind her cloak again without him having the chance to see the way her face shifted beneath whatever emotion had bade her touch him. He was almost glad of it. He feared that emotion would look too much like grief, like loss, like she was as aware of the breaking thing between them as he.

 _And hey, how messed up is it that after everything she’s been through,_ she’s _the one comforting_ you _?_

This time the voice in his head, clipped and admonishing, most decidedly belonged to his sister.

A veritable gang of consciences. Wonderful.

_Shut up, Solana._

Apart from a couple of techs working with heads bent together in the CIC who didn’t even bother looking up as Garrus and the invisible Shepard passed, the cloak proved unnecessary. Shepard let it drop as soon as they entered the passage to the war room. Pausing beneath the darkened arch of the scanner, she tilted her head and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “Weird,” she said, her tone uncharacteristically distracted. “I guess… weird.”

“Shepard?”

Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, she reached out and laid the flat of her hand against the scanner. “This is what makes it real. Isn’t that strange? I used to wonder if Westmoreland and Campbell ever slept. They must’ve logged a ridiculous number of hours manning this stupid thing. Never saw anyone else down here, no matter what part of the day cycle we were on.” She shook her head as though trying to rid her mind of a memory. The tense set of her brows and the paleness of her lips told him it wasn’t a pleasant one. “Do you—where are they now? Do you know?”

“Both on Earth, far as I know. Maybe they were afraid if they volunteered for this mission, they’d be shunted back into this room to live out the rest of their careers.” He smiled faintly, and lifted a hand to draw an imaginary, explanatory line across his brow across his nose to the corner of his mouth. “Westmoreland caught a nasty cut when the ship crashed and begged Chakwas to leave the scar. Last I saw them, she and Campbell were concocting ever more exaggerated battle scenarios to explain it. I didn’t have the heart to tell them if they’d ever gotten close enough for a Banshee’s hand to leave that wound, they’d never have lived to tell the tale.”

Shepard snorted, turning her head to flash him a grin. He felt inordinately proud of being the source of that momentary mirth. “Who’d dare question it though? Story that crazy has to be true. Like fighting Reapers on foot, right?” Shepard dropped her hand back to her lap as if the scanner had stung her. Her smile died. “Remind me to see they both get commendations. Hell, after spending the whole damned war in this room, they deserve to move on to whatever they want.”

Making a mental note to see those commendations given even if this—even if Shepard’s word ended up no longer holding the clout it once had, Garrus took hold of the wheelchair’s handles and guided her through the archway and into the war room. Here she said nothing, and her face remained resolutely facing forward, but the tense line of her shoulders spoke volumes. He found himself wishing her hair was pulled up in its usual tail, or even the knot she’d worn when he’d first met her and her hair had been longer. The loose red curtain now cascading over her thin shoulders, stark against the white of her medical gown, hid the back of her neck from him, and that neck was as eloquent an indicator of her emotions as her face, to someone used to watching her six.

He hated going in blind. Always had.

Before he could wheel her into the QEC, Shepard’s hands dropped to the wheels, stalling their progress.

“Shepard?”

She lifted her eyes, and he didn’t need a translator to understand the frantic thought happening behind them. “What do you think? Instead of good cop, bad cop, can we do… sneaky cop and forthright cop?”

He nodded thoughtfully. “You want to go in cloaked? Doesn’t that break a whole chapter full of rules somewhere?”

She turned her palms up in wordless acceptance of his point, but the look on her face—her _I have a plan, Garrus_ look—only deepened. Intensified. “Spectre authority?”

It was his turn to snort, a sharp almost-laugh. “I thought we decided _I_ was bad cop. _Now_ you’re all for abusing your Spectre status?”

“Sure,” she said, and her casual tone couldn’t completely mask the hint of uneasiness. “Everyone knows the best abuse of power is pulling the wool over your commanding officer’s eyes. And requisitioning more than one’s fair share of umbrellas in fruity cocktails.”

He flicked his mandibles at her, confused. She waved her fingers dismissively. “Ask Joker sometime,” she said. “Or… don’t. I know everyone’s still sore about the sushi place.”

He caught himself before he blurted _Joker’s sore about more than the sushi place, Shepard_. Something of his ill-conceived thought must have shown on his face, because Shepard’s expression darkened. “Right,” she said, answering some unspoken thought. “Admiral Hackett’s solid. Unflappable.” Garrus didn’t argue with her, though he’d certainly seen the admiral uneasy. Emotional. Angry. _Bring her home. And if they’ve done anything to hurt her…_ Shepard continued on, oblivious, “I figure this is as good a chance to genuinely catch him off-guard as we’re going to get. See what he wants. See what information you can get—”

“Shepard,” Garrus murmured. “C-Sec. Years. I’m pretty familiar with the concept of _interrogation_.”

She stopped, lips still parted to speak, and blinked at him. “Uh. Fair enough.”

He shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”

Nodding, she reached for the cloak’s switch. Before she vanished, he saw determination in the set of her jaw and the cant of her brows.

Entirely Shepard. Again.

When he entered the QEC, he didn’t miss the way Traynor’s eyes slipped past him, searching. When no one followed him in, her brows dipped into a disappointed droop that vanished almost as soon as he noticed it. When she spoke, her tone was crisp as ever, betraying nothing. “Admiral Hackett, sir.”

“Thanks, Specialist. That’ll be all for now.”

Again Traynor’s eyes scanned the empty room. For half a heartbeat, they hovered over the spot where his visor said _Shepard_ , but then she merely nodded and departed without turning back again. Garrus activated his side of the call and the admiral sprang immediately to life in front of him. Settling into an easy parade rest, not informal enough to earn a reprimand, but not quite deferential either, Garrus remained silent, taking in the admiral’s appearance, looking for anything like a clue. Hackett looked as implacable as ever, sturdy without being stiff and controlled without being severe.

“Vakarian.” Hackett’s voice was the same too, firm, steady and used to being obeyed. It held a shiver of query, almost the equivalent of subharmonics, as if the admiral wanted to ask the reason why Garrus was forcing him to speak the first words of their meeting but wasn’t willing to actually voice his concern. “It’s been a fortnight with no word from you. Any—how is she?”

“As she was,” Garrus replied. Not quite the truth. Not quite a lie. Garrus could tell the admiral was clenching his jaw by the way the scar cutting across his face pulled taut. “It’s been a fortnight with no word from you, either. Do you have new orders for us? New leads? Has our reluctance to return stirred any of the pyjaks out of the underbrush?”

The admiral’s face blurred as he shifted, almost pacing. “Not as much as I’d like. Your father’s been invaluable, but even his searches pull nothing but dead ends after an avenue or two. I don’t suppose you have anything to add?”

Garrus ignored the question, answering with one of his own instead. “How do you explain his involvement? None of this falls within the purview of Citadel Security.”

“And I’m not one to cut off my nose to spite my face. Kaius Vakarian’s reputation as an investigator is unparalleled, and the Citadel no longer has need of its security. I, however, am happy to put his skills to use as an… outside contractor.”

Garrus swallowed the snide _fond of outside contractors, aren’t we_ he wanted to speak and instead said, “How’s his clearance?”

Hackett froze, his clear gaze crackling even distorted by the QEC, obviously startled by the thinly-veiled importunity of the question. “Absolute and unimpeded.” The admiral leaned forward slightly, as though physical action could close the incredible amount of distance between them. “Have you some reason to doubt my commitment to bringing Shepard’s kidnappers to justice?”

 _Level 8_ , Garrus thought. _My dad said Level 8. If the trouble’s not you, it’s in your office._ “Did my father by any chance pass along a message, Admiral?”

“He did not. Though…” Hackett lifted his eyes skyward, as humans so often did when they were trying to recall something. “He did ask I keep communications brief and refrain from transmitting classified details. I believe he has some concerns about security. Expected, given what a shambles the entire system’s in these days. May I ask to what these questions pertain, Mr. Vakarian?”

Garrus opened his mouth to speak, but instead Shepard’s voice said, “I asked him to, sir. Reconnaissance. Always was a forte.”

He glanced down. Shepard was visible now, and even chair-bound and clad in a medical gown, she projected the aura of complete and utter confidence. She made the wheelchair finer than any captain’s command chair, and the white gown somehow transcended even her dress blues. Shepard’s eyes never left the admiral, and Garrus remembered after a moment that he was meant to be looking for illusive cracks in a near-impenetrable mask and not admiring Shepard’s ability to command a room with a phrase and the tilt of her chin. 

“Shepard,” the admiral breathed, the word a kind of prayer.

“Or at least a reasonable facsimile,” Shepard mused with cheer as false as Hackett’s relief was genuine. Garrus watched the man’s jaw work, and realized he was seeing the admiral completely speechless for the first time.

After several moments of this, Hackett finally managed, “Come home, Shepard.”

Shepard, however, was already shaking her head. “I’d rather not, sir. Not until—not until I can walk off this ship on my own two feet.” _Not until we’re certain I’m me_ , Garrus heard loud and clear. “And perhaps it’s best we not talk details at this juncture. When I’m ready. Not before.”

It took guts—cojones, Vega would’ve said—to give orders to a commanding officer and make it seem like you weren’t. Shepard did it effortlessly. Even made it seem like the most rational option of all the options on the table.

“Sir?” Shepard added, almost like an afterthought. Garrus knew it wasn’t. “Can you relay a message to Officer Vakarian? From me? Ask him… ask him to keep looking. And when you’re alone, ask him to confide in you. He might not. But it’s worth the question.”

“Shepard,” Garrus began, “are you—”

She nodded once, sharp as a gunshot. “We’ll be in touch, Admiral. But not through this channel, I think. Shepard out.”

Because she had to wheel herself to the console, Hackett managed to get “Shepard, don’t you dar—” out before she was able to terminate the call.

Garrus finished his question she’d earlier interrupted. “Are you sure?”

“Aren’t you?” she asked. He bowed his head, admitting he was. He didn’t miss the way her hands shook as she rested them safely on the arms of her chair once again. A little of her commanding persona crumbled and she sighed. “What a mess. What a damned ugly mess. I want some _answers._ ”

He scrubbed his hands down the length of his fringe and rolled his head from side to side, hoping for a satisfying crack and getting nothing but more aches. “That’s what I’ve been saying for months.”

“Reconnaissance,” she murmured, almost under her breath, almost to herself. “Always something of a forte.”

Her lips twisted. Not a smile. Not a frown. Determination mixed with disappointment, served up with a side of frustration and just a dash of hope.

Entirely Shepard.

_Entirely Shepard._

And oh, how it burned to be certain of _Hackett_ but not of Shepard herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Many thanks to all of you waiting so patiently while these last few chapters have come at less even intervals. Please don't think it's because I'm flagging; I'm merely away from home and have been begging, borrowing and stealing moments in which to write. That said, I anticipate a delay of about two weeks before the next chapter will be ready. I'm not giving up on the story at all. That's a vow. You've been a really wonderful, dedicated group of readers, and I thank you for your continued support and your patience during this less-prolific time.


	30. Your Heart Would Have Responded

Shepard wanted to be pacing. Not being able to do so was very disconcerting, and wheeling herself—even fiercely, with purpose—from one side of the room to the other simply didn’t scratch the itch to move the way she wanted it to. She was also increasingly aware she’d have to give the wheelchair _back_ , and she’d be once again relegated to her medbay prison with its kind, concerned, well-meaning warden. The itch flared up, twice as strong. It had been so good to be _herself_ again. In control again. Hackett hadn’t doubted. Hackett hadn’t questioned. And yet still, she wanted to be pacing.

It didn’t help that Garrus was watching her with a sort of pessimistic hopelessness half-hidden in the hunch of his shoulders and the absentminded flutter of his mandibles. It wasn’t even the pessimism that bothered her, not really. It was the hiding of it. She recognized mental armor when she saw it. Hell, she was an expert. She’d certainly built her own more than once. Really excellent mental armor. The kind it took armies to break. She’d just never seen Garrus arm himself against _her_ before. She was used to being the conquering force—or at least the successful military sapper—an _ally_ , dammit—not the army blindly trying to conduct a successful siege without breaking anything in the process. She was so afraid of breaking things. Him. Them. Some fragile, unfixable thing she hadn’t yet anticipated. She wanted victory, but not if she left ruin in her wake.

The war might be over, but cleanup was always just as dangerous. Peace didn’t automatically disarm hidden land mines—or giant buried bombs, as Tuchanka had so eloquently proven. She didn’t know exactly what lay buried beneath Garrus’ walls, but she doubted it was anything as small as a hand grenade. They neither of them did _small_. Step the wrong way, and she was liable to blow them both into unrecognizable fragments of who they’d been before. The only trouble being, of course, that she had no idea what _way_ constituted _wrong._

Hackett’s _come home, Shepard_ rang in her ears. Tempting. So tempting. What was home, though? Not Earth. Earth had never been home. Until she’d woken to find her entire universe tilted on an axis she couldn’t quite make sense of, she’d have said the _Normandy_ and her people were the closest thing to home she’d known since Mindoir. She’d almost, _almost_ let herself get comfortable. Settled. Now, though? The _Normandy_ was swiftly devolving into a different kind of Mindoir. Nothing so overt as seeing her dead father sprawled in a doorway as the bubbling yellow paint of their house dripped and smoked around him, but a similar kind of loss nonetheless. Harder, perhaps, because it all looked so _normal._ She just didn’t fit into the landscape anymore. She didn’t think hiding in a tree would be enough. Rescue, she feared, wasn’t coming.

Never had the old _you can’t go home again_ adage seemed so cruel. _I never wanted to leave in the first place_ , she wanted to protest. _It’s not fair._ She suspected the plea would fall on deaf ears. Fairness was nice in theory, but so rarely worked in practice. _You’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt_ , she imagined her father saying. _And in real life, folding’s just not an option. Not really. So you take that two of clubs and ten of diamonds and you run with it, baby girl, and you hope the river’s kind._

 _Come home, Shepard._ Semantics aside, she recognized the grief in Hackett’s words, the hope. She’d have bet her life—was, perhaps, betting her life and the lives of the people around her—that no matter what else was going on in the mess left of his chain of command, his hands were clean. She could follow his order, she knew. She could return to Hackett’s circle of influence, leaving Garrus behind his new walls, protected by his new armor, with the swath of deadly destructive ordnance buried between them. Unexploded, perhaps, but too present for true peace. Cut her losses. Chalk the last four years up to acceptable loss—ruthless calculus—and move on. If Garrus no longer hovered over her shoulder questioning her every move with wounded eyes, would she start believing in herself again? If she were surrounded by supporters, would she stop wondering how real she was?

 _I don’t want to talk about it._  

How many times had she said those words while they raced through the Citadel, always one step behind her damned _Other Me_ clone, as her squad joked at her expense? And she hadn’t. Talked about it. Not then. Not afterward. Not even to Garrus. She’d made jokes back. She’d laughed it off. She’d pushed and pushed and pushed herself all the way to the end without once stopping to think about how completely and unutterably _fucked up_ it was to have to look at one’s own face and hope to hell there weren’t a half-dozen more of you, hiding out in some Cerberus lab waiting to be turned out on an unsuspecting populace.

Hope to hell you weren’t just the better, more-polished version of the same damned thing, with an understudy already waiting in the wings.

Maybe even now the memories she thought she had, _thought were hers_ , weren’t. Perhaps the period of disorientation—of not being herself—was some side-effect of too-rapid memory transplant. Or something. Equally horrifying. Equally irreversible. She should have stayed asleep.

_Folding’s just not an option._

Swallowing hard, she swung herself around again. The damned room was too small. With each cycle of her arms, the chair covered too much ground. It was ridiculously unsatisfying, and she bit back the urge to scream or bury her hands in her hair or lurch to her feet and attempt the pacing she wanted, broken legs be damned.

What ifs rolled over and over each other in her head, a ceaseless cascade. What if they never found the answers they needed? What if Garrus was never certain of her again? What if she wasn’t who she thought she was? What if this limbo was, in fact, her new reality? What if, what if, what if. A waterfall of what ifs. One of those huge roaring waterfalls she’d only ever seen in vids. Maybe Garrus’ tropical beach retirement fantasy had room for a waterfall. She’d never particularly thought herself the early-retirement type, but she’d do it now. In a heartbeat. They could run, hide, relax, _forget_.

No. No. Flaws in that plan, too. Forgetting landed them in this mess to begin with. And Garrus no longer looked like he even wanted to be in the same room, let alone living a life of leisure on a white-sand beach—with a waterfall, the waterfall would be nice—somewhere. They needed answers. Not forgetting. Remembering. She needed _remembering_. And not stupid, useless shit like the exact number of guns in the armory—sixty-eight; damn that was a lot of weapons, and what the hell did she need three Shurikens for anyway when she didn’t even _use_ SMGs?—or the way Garrus purred his pleasure beneath her when she jumped him that time after… Rannoch? Not Thessia, certainly. She’d been a mess after Thessia. No one had purred pleasure then. No. She needed the right memories. The right thoughts. Not these ones. She needed _answers_. 

Only when she looked up again and saw the shattered expression on his face did she realize she’d been muttering some—or all, God, no—of these tangled thoughts aloud.

“Shepard,” he said, and the low note of warning in his subvocals made all the hair on her arms prickle and rise.

Folding her hands in her lap to keep from anxiously propelling herself around the room yet again, she lifted her chin and met his concerned gaze. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

She wanted to say _I’m fine_ , but couldn’t. She remembered that much. A promise not to lie about being fine. _As long as you promise to be honest with_ me _, I won’t tell anyone else when you’re not fine_ he’d begged. And she’d promised. _We don’t lie to each other._ Instead, she avoided his question by sidestepping into one of her own. “Why?”

“You’re a little—”

“Not myself?” she snapped, unable to stem the wave of sudden vitriol. She regretted it as he flinched. The movement was subtle. Not subtle enough. Exactly the kind of crack she’d been trying so desperately to avoid inflicting.

“I was going to say manic. And manic isn’t usually how you operate. I… noticed it before, too. In the medbay. When you started thinking about the book.”

The book. Of course the book. Tightening her hands in their death-grip hold on each other didn’t stop her toe from tapping an uneven beat against the footrest. Her bare skin slapped against the metal. She wanted socks. _Needed_ socks. And a uniform. And her life back.

She had this. Memories she couldn’t trust, questions without answers. All these little mysteries slipping like poisoned needles beneath her skin, so smooth and subtle. The kind that would kill her before she even knew she was injured. And it wouldn’t even be the first time. Two months. Two years. God, but she was sick of dying. 

She shivered and unfolded her hands, pressing her fingertips to her forehead, as if pressing could squeeze the information she needed out of her reluctant brain. The book was a message. The message was a clue. A clue was a lead. She knew that much. Of course she knew that much. Message, clue, lead. Answers. And socks. Her goddamned feet were cold. She settled her left foot on top of her right to stop the tapping. Her heart fluttered along as if to pick up her stilled foot’s slack. Faster, faster, faster.

“Shepard—”

“Reconnaissance is the key, I think. We don’t have enough information. The Kodiak’s got limited FTL. We could send someone. I’d suggest your sister, to liaise with your father, but—”

“Solana should stay,” Garrus said, and the strain in his subharmonics took on a different tenor. Desperation, maybe. Blinking, she tried to remember the last time she’d heard anything like it. _I don’t know what to do with grey._ “Samara came on a ship with better range than the Kodiak.”

She swallowed. If mania had a taste, it would have been bitterness on the tip of her tongue and in the back of her throat. She couldn’t tell if he was agreeing with her, or just stating a fact she wasn’t aware of. One of the thousand facts she wasn’t aware of. “I saw Kaidan,” she said, slowly, trying to feel out each syllable. “And Samara, obviously. Samara won’t leave Brooks, I imagine. Nor, perhaps, should she. Who else is aboard? Tali? Liara? Liara might do.”

Again the gates were lowered, the drawbridge raised, and Shepard was left on the outside of the fortress, desperately looking for a way in. Garrus didn’t give her any. She’d pushed too far. Again. Stepped on his toes. Again. Turning his face slightly, he glanced toward the now-dark QEC. Then he sighed. Also pessimistic. Pessimism sharing a border with despair. He said nothing, mandibles stilled.

“I believe you!” she blurted before she think better of the outburst and stop herself. Cried, if she was honest. Her voice broke on the final word, went shrill and biting. Pessimistic sigh or not, his head whipped around and his gaze, startled now, found hers. She continued before he could protest, all the words she’d held just under the surface, all the words she’d tried to swallow for fear they’d make him even sadder, even angrier, even more disconcerted by her. “I _believe_ you when you say I’m not quite right, but I… _feel_ like myself. Do you understand? I don’t remember the things that make you look at me the way you do now. For me, the last clear memory I have of you is that goodbye. That declaration of love I thought—yeah, I thought it—would be our last. Then I… I was asleep, and I woke up, and I didn’t stop loving you. I’ve never had to hide it from you before. I’ve never had to pretend. I don’t know how.” She pressed a hand to her racing heart, and half-believed she could feel it trying to break its way out of her ribcage. “That’s the truth. It hurts.”

“Shepard…”

“No,” she said, to forestall his… whatever it was going to be. Worry. Apology. Tentativeness. Dismissal, maybe. “I respect you.” Her lips twisted in a bitter little smile. “There’s nobody in this galaxy I respect more than you.”

His exhale held a little keening grace note of pain.

“And because I respect you, because I _trust_ you, I understand things aren’t… the same. For you. As they were. As they are. For me. And because of that respect, that trust, I want to believe your doubt is valid even though  your questions aren’t my questions, not really. I was going to die. I didn’t. I woke up. And I want to kiss you. That’s what I want. Answers to questions and a kiss. Your forehead on mine. That didn’t change for me. That’s never changed for me. I don’t know how to stop wanting it.”

When he dropped to his knees beside her, one hand holding the chair in place and the other darting to her neck, she thought he was going to give her what she wanted. But his look wasn’t an ardent one, and his fingers were only reaching for her pulse, as if he didn’t believe whatever secrets about her his visor revealed. “Shepard,” he said, quietly, firmly, almost as though he believed it, believed she was _Shepard_ and not just _Other Me_. “Take a deep breath.”

She was halfway through obeying him before she questioned whether she should. His hand against her throat made her heart race for an entirely different set of reasons, and the breath caught somewhere before the apex.

“We need to get you back to the medbay,” he said, in the kind of even, soothing tone that could only mean his worry had skyrocketed from normal you’re-a-little-manic levels to I’m-afraid-you’re-going-to-keel-over-and-die-right-here-in-the-redundant-war-room levels. Shaking her head, she leaned away from his hand and took the deep breath he wanted. One. Two. Three. Her heart began to slow. Her thoughts began to clear. Garrus crouched beside her, head tilted with such concern it made her stomach hurt.

“I’m… better,” she said, not lying. “Give me a minute. Just… please. Give me a minute.”

“Shepard—” He sat back on his haunches, but didn’t push. She could’ve kissed him for that. Could’ve. Couldn’t, though. Instead, she closed her hand into a fist and brought it down hard on her thigh. He caught her before she could do it again. Her feet were still cold. Hackett still wanted her to come home. Everything was upside down and backwards, but instead of mania, she was left only with the sinking emptiness of failure and the certainty that this time while she’d been gone, someone had come along behind her and moved all the pieces and changed all the rules in the game she’d been playing. The life she’d been living. Her burst of energy spiraled away, like water down a drain. She wondered if she’d ever see a damned waterfall now. Probably not. Probably not.

“Please, don’t make me go back,” she whispered, hardly loud enough to count as speaking. “I don’t know what’s real when I’m there.” With her free hand, she rubbed absently at the center of her forehead again. A monster of a headache was brewing behind her eyes, each throb as sharp as a blow, as a gunshot. _I’m sorry, Shepard._ An echo. A memory. A dream. The shock skittering across Garrus’ face distracted her before she could ask herself who’d apologized, and why. “What—”

“I need the doctor to look at your vitals.”

Her lips twisted wryly. Oh so bitterly. “Let me guess. I’m not myself.” She shook her head, almost an apology, still feeling the burn of all those words in the back of her throat. “You’re right, of course.”

“Kaidan,” he said. Explained. His fingers brushed her cheekbone, not quite a kiss but too careful to be anything but entirely deliberate. He rose and bounced for a moment on the balls of his feet as if to rid his legs of a cramp. “Tali, yes, but not Liara. She’s on Earth. Better comms. Not that it helps us now, since this channel can’t be trusted. She’s the one who sent Brooks and Samara, because she couldn’t locate Miranda. I don’t know what—if anything—she’s found since then. Jack and Zaeed. Grunt. Wrex insisted. Javik, because I think you might be the only living person he gives a shit about. Traynor and Cortez and Joker. Some other Alliance crew who volunteered. You’d know all their names. I’m trying. Mostly failing. Emerson and Edding aren’t speaking to me, since I’ve mixed them up three times.”

She smiled faintly. Garrus moved behind her and began guiding the chair back through the empty war room with all its silent consoles. “Well, they’re both dark-haired.”

“Yeah.”

“…Emerson’s a woman, though.”

Garrus snorted. “I’ve got that now, thanks.”

The chair didn’t stop. Garrus’ pace was even, and just swift enough to indicate that in spite of the jokes, he was still worrying. She put one hand to her throat and felt the stuttering, too-swift thudding of blood beneath her fingertips. When the door to the CIC opened and she reached for the tactical cloak’s switch, Garrus said, “Don’t bother. After the doctor clears you, it’ll be time for your rounds, won’t it?”

She crossed and uncrossed and recrossed her chilled ankles. Her legs didn’t hurt quite so much. Maybe it was a good sign. For a change. “If you… if you think so.”

“They’re probably overdue.” He cleared his throat. “It’s time they saw you. It’s… time you saw them. We’ll… we’ll deal with the rest. Just… just like old times.”

“Sure,” she said, her tone as vaguely uneasy as his. “Into hell, right?”

“Maybe out of it, this time.”

“Here’s hoping.”

“Yeah,” he echoed, “here’s hoping.”

Hope was a hell of a burden to bear. _I’m sorry, Shepard_ , repeated the voice in her head. Not his. She wondered what exactly that voice was sorry for, but her head hurt too much to examine it closely. Later. Later. Not now, while things were looking up and the words _just like old times_ hung between them like a promise.


	31. A Game of Chess

By the time they reached the crew deck, all symptoms of Shepard’s stress had faded, and Garrus’ visor was once again displaying normal readouts across the board. It was almost enough to make him question what he’d seen, what he’d heard. Almost, but not quite. And though she seemed physically recovered, Shepard was as subdued now as she’d been manic earlier, and neither state was quite normal. She sat in contemplative silence as he pushed her chair out of the elevator. He imagined her half-curled into herself, gathering her forces, lining up the pieces of her mental army like the little soldiers on the chessboard in her cabin. He had yet to beat her at a game of chess. He suspected he wasn’t about to start winning now.

Moving through the mess, they once again passed poor Hastings. This time, Shepard, uncloaked, lifted her head and sent the woman a friendly little wave. “Sorry about the elevator earlier,” she said, her cheer so close to real even Garrus almost believed it.

Hastings gaped, nearly dropping her mug of still-steaming coffee, sputtering, “C-commander? But you—but what—but _how_ —” 

They were spared having to respond by the closing of the medbay doors behind them. Solana leaned back against a collection of pillows, still poring over Shepard’s book in the glow of her omni-tool’s interface. She lifted her eyes when they entered, rapidly typed in a series of notes, and let the omni-tool fall dark again. The book she closed and left on her lap. After her gaze flitted to Shepard, it remained steady on him, but for once she didn’t prod or push or demand answers he wasn’t willing—or able—to give. He knew they were there, though, just below the surface. Hell, he was even pretty sure he knew what they’d _be_.

Choosing to ignore his sister, and before Shepard could protest, Garrus explained—physiologically, at least; some things the doctor didn’t need to know—the symptoms of Shepard’s attack upstairs. Shepard’s expression darkened with faint betrayal, but she let him finish speaking and then submitted to the doctor’s ministrations without protest. When Chakwas had declared her as fit as she’d been before—with the heavy implication _not as fit as I’d like_ —Shepard plucked listlessly at the medical gown she wore and send a wide-eyed, pleading look up at Garrus. It was so melodramatically pitiful he almost laughed. It was her _please, Garrus, I’m so nice and warm and comfortable here in bed, can you get me a glass of water_ look. Her _please, Garrus, my firing mechanism’s jammed and you like your assault rifle better than I like my pistol can I please borrow your Widow_ look. His mandibles twitched.

“I don’t suppose any of my things are still up there?”

He blinked, and without tamping down the surprise in his subvocals, said, “ _All_ your things are up there. I wouldn’t have—of course they are.”

Relief passed over her face so swiftly he only recognized it for what it was once it was gone again. Her fingers twitched, almost like she was going to reach out for him, but at the last moment she only slid her hand under her thigh and sat on it. “Could I—I would _really_ like to get out of this… garment. If you can call it that.” 

She sent a similarly imploring look toward Chakwas, who only huffed a disgruntled breath and flung a hand up. “I’ll have no peace from you otherwise. I’m familiar with this routine now, Shepard. I’ve rather learned to pick my battles, and goodness knows this is one I’ve yet to win.”

Ahh, and there it was again, only this time it was a _please, Garrus, I’m desperate for some new clothes but I’ve been wheeling myself around all day and won’t you run along upstairs and grab me something_ look.

“Uniform?” he drawled. “Or civvies?”

“The latter,” she said with a pleased smile, and Spirits, but he still loved the particular warmth that accompanied pleasing her. “If Kaidan can leave his Alliance colors groundside, I suppose I’d better join in. But if you bring me that hideous orange jumpsuit… thing, I _will_ find a way to strangle you to death with it. God. I keep throwing it away, and it keeps coming _back again_.”

Garrus snorted a laugh. From the corner of his eye, he caught the meaningful lift of Solana’s brow plates, and for once in his existence he wished for a human’s five fingers just so he could utilize one of Jack’s favorite gestures and flip his sister off. 

#

Shepard waited until the door closed, counted silently to ten to give Garrus time to get out of earshot, and then said, “How is he? Really?”

For once, she didn’t attempt to mask her worry or downplay the urgency of her request. When Chakwas and Solana and Samara all looked at her like she’d sprouted a second head, she gestured vaguely toward the door and repeated her question. Even _more_ urgently. Didn’t they realize how little _time_ there was? Couldn’t they grasp the importance?

After a series of exchanged glances between the others, Chakwas answered first, holding her hands wide in a helpless shrug. “No lasting… _physical_ ill-effects from his experience on Earth. If I had my way, he’d sleep for a week and I’d watch him eat three meals a day for twice that long before letting him out of my sight, but that rather goes for everyone aboard the _Normandy_ at this juncture. He’s… medically stable.”

“Medically stable,” Shepard repeated under her breath. Damning with faint praise, indeed.

She looked toward Samara next, but the asari’s serenity didn’t budge as she said, a little ambiguously, “The burden of command is a heavy one, as you have every reason to know.”

Squinting, Shepard asked, “And… so you… do you think I’m me, then? If I’ve ‘every reason to know’ as you say?”

Samara’s expression gave so little away that the faint tilt of her head was a tell almost deafening. “I believe you are the Shepard I have always known.”

“And yet? There’s a huge _but_ hanging at the end of that sentence, Samara.”

“The question Maya raised was not simply one of _recent_ clone replacement. She hinted rather heavily that you—that the Shepard whom Miranda healed and released on the galaxy—might also have been a clone.”

“Which means even if you did your asari thing,” Shepard wiggled her fingers at the side of her head, “you’d only be able to see that I’m… post-Lazarus Shepard. Maybe. Whereas…” She took a deep breath that failed to steady her racing thoughts, and considered Garrus’ diagnosis of _manic_. “Whereas Garrus knew me _before_ , before Alchera, before everything. _He_ believed I was _me_ —me version 1.0, conveniently upgraded—when we met again on Omega, but if Brooks…” She closed her hand into a fist and wished for something to hit. Or for biotics. It would be _tremendously satisfying_ to pick something—Brooks, maybe—up with her mind and just _hurl_ it. “ _Fuck_ Brooks. She plants a seed and that seed grows into a venomous plant that calls all sorts of things into question for him, not least of which is judgment he already worries might be impaired. And the last time his judgment was impaired… the last time he was _blind_ …”

Samara nodded, a brief lowering of her chin.

Solana rubbed a hand along the back of her neck—a gesture so like Garrus’ it made Shepard’s stomach drop—and said, “Sorry. I think I’m missing a few data points here. Don’t get me wrong—I think my brother’s about as messed up as I’ve ever seen him, including the time he shot me. And he was _really_ messed up then.”

Shepard blinked, shaking her head in stunned ignorance. Solana waved it away with a casual flick of her wrist. “We were kids, it was a stupid mistake, and it’s a long story. Ask me some time when I’ve got a drink in my hands. _Don’t_ ask Garrus. Twenty years later and he’s still carrying it around like it’s a mistake he made _yesterday_. But that’s not the salient point. If you’re the woman he talked about on Palaven, and the woman he followed into the Reaper war without once faltering or looking back, what does it matter if you started life as a clone? It’s just semantics, isn’t it? I mean if you’re… if you’re the _you_ he fell in love with? Was he—you weren’t involved before, were you?”

Shepard bit the insides of her lips. “You mean when we were chasing Saren? No. Friends, though. We’ve… we’ve always been friends. He doesn’t… he hates being lied to.”

“Don’t we all,” Solana griped. “But you were never the one doing the lying. Not intentionally. Even if lies were being told. Hell, if the worst case scenario is actually the truth, no one was lied to worse than you.”

_We don’t lie to each other._

“Look,” Solana added, with a touch of placation—perhaps even apology—in her tone. “He may be _medically_ sound, but I don’t think you can divorce physical health from mental, and he’s not firing on all cylinders right now. And I don’t think he’d even bother arguing with me if he heard me say it. Which is actually… frankly, it’s part of the problem. Finding you the way he did… I don’t know. I can’t pretend to know how it felt. It’s just… I’ve been thinking, and I’ve been looking at all these disparate pieces trying to make them line up and make sense, and if I were a gambler? I’d bet there’s a chance the amnesia wasn’t meant as much to mess _you_ up, as to screw with him.” Solana shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know the enemies you’ve made. Or that he’s made. I don’t know who would want to hurt him like that, or you. This book you came with has turian writing in it, though, and he’s the only turian you’ve been known to pal around with, so I don’t think we’re looking at a damned coincidence.”

Shepard opened her mouth to speak, but caught the faint sound of footsteps and stopped herself. “I want a report later,” she said quickly. “If EDI had been online, I’d ask for vid, but I want as much as you can tell me about how I was when you found me. Details. Details, I think, are important.”

“Details are always important,” Solana said, earning a nod of approval from Samara. Shepard echoed it. Chakwas looked thoughtful and retreated to her desk, and her console, and her endless stacks of datapads. Shepard only hoped something in there—in any of their memories, really—could help her start gluing the broken thing this situation had become back together again.

#

He had to admit, returning to the medbay once Shepard had time enough to enlist help to dress, she did look more like herself in familiar black fatigues, with her ubiquitous hoodie half-unzipped and the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Her clothes hung on her a bit; she’d lost some of the weight she’d put on after their ordeal. She wasn’t as thin as she’d been then, perhaps, but enough to unsettle him all over again. With her collarbone not up to the task of supporting her arms to reach up and pull her hair back, Chakwas obliged and dressed her hair for her. The ponytail was slightly off-center, but at least he could once again see the familiar, pale column of her neck, and read its silent language. Right now it said she was determined. A little tired. Mostly determined. And too thin.

He waited until the door closed behind them again before asking, “Do you want to call everyone into the conference room? Do it all in one go?”

“Hell, no.” Her smile stole a little of the sting from her dismissal. “Conference rooms are for handing out orders and delivering stirring speeches. They have to listen to my orders everywhere else, and I don’t think I have a speech in me right now, stirring or otherwise.” She sighed, and he saw her force her smile a little bigger, a little brighter. “In their own spaces, the ones they choose, people are just themselves.” Here her expression went a little glassy, a little distant, like she was remembering something in particular. Whatever it was, she didn’t share it, and half-a-heartbeat later she merely shook her head and continued, “Knowing the _people_ is where it’s at. I don’t imagine I have to tell you that.”

He wondered if the lesson she spoke of was in fact one he’d learned too late. Oh, sure, he’d known histories and skill sets, the dossiers of his damned, but the rest? He’d never talked to Melanis or Krul or, hell, even Naxus, his second in command on Palaven, the way Shepard talked to her people. Maybe he should’ve. Maybe he wouldn’t have left so many dead left in his wake.

Whatever she saw on his face inverted her smile and left grim lines etched in the delicate skin at her eyes. “You’re not me,” she said. “And you don’t have to be.”

Without further explanation, she wheeled herself pointedly toward the elevator. She paused after a few feet and glanced back over her shoulder, expression inscrutable. “Coming?”

“Do you—” but he didn’t know how to finish. _Want me to?_ Need _me to? Forget that this is something you’ve always done without an audience?_

She hooked a thumb at the chair’s handles and lifted a challenging eyebrow. “Could use the help.”

His mandibles flicked in the briefest of smiles, but he did as she asked. “Where to?”

“Joker,” she said, without hesitation.

“Are you… he’s—”

“I always talk to Joker first,” she insisted. He didn’t miss the undercurrent of worry in her voice. Good. She was right to worry, and he was glad, at least, she wouldn’t be walking in completely blind. She tapped a fingertip to her chest, over her heart. Glancing at his visor readout, he was relieved to note her vitals were still steady. The strange episode in the war room had already begun to feel a bit like a dream, the echo of some old nightmare. Shepard continued, low enough he had to bend near as he pushed the chair to hear her, “Joker’s the heart, you see. He’s a smartass with an attitude and ego enough for half a dozen excellent pilots, but he’s… I always talk to Joker first. Always.”

In the elevator, she leaned on an elbow and looked up at him. “Want me to let you in on a little secret? It’s good to know your people. Great to know them. Friendship’s a good glue. Catch more flies with honey and all that.”

He had a very vague recollection of that particular idiom from the Human Sayings and Their Meanings crash course Joker had once forcibly put him through, but he couldn’t remember the last half, and Shepard was still speaking, so he focused instead on her. “But these conversations? They’re not just _conversation_. They’re a vital part of my tactics, Garrus. The same way Chakwas checks for fever. Hell, the same way you’re constantly glued to your visor and its readouts, right? It’s information. If I talk to someone and they’re not _on_ , if their head’s not in the game as it were, they don’t go groundside the next time out. If someone’s angry or frustrated or upset, they get time to sort themselves out or cool off, and I’m not worried about them blowing a gasket on the battlefield.” She held her palm out, and shrugged a tiny shrug. “But if you don’t talk to them on their terms, on their turf, you might never _know_ , you might never get to the heart of that problem, and then you’re left holding a live grenade at the worst possible moment.”

Wryly, he said, “I think I’m starting to understand why the only time I was grounded was between telling you about my lead on Sidonis and actually _dealing_ with my lead on Sidonis.”

Instead of smiling or reassuring him, she laced her fingers together in her lap and stared down at them. “Scared the shit out of me, frankly. I’d never… I’d never seen you like that.”

“You seemed… fine. A little worried, maybe. Not without cause.”

Her fingers flexed and tensed. “It was more than that. I wasn’t… it was a wakeup call, I guess. I knew something was bothering you, knew you were running ragged after Omega, knew you wouldn’t _talk_ to me about any of it, but I was… hell, I was selfish. Yours was the familiar face, and I’d never wanted a familiar face at my back more in my life. I… broke my own rules. I thought I was going to lose you down there. To your demons, maybe. To C-Sec, if they caught a whiff of one of their former agents plotting cold-blooded killing on the damned streets. And then, when I put my nose in against your wishes and you were so _angry_ afterward, I thought my selfishness had come back to bite me, and I was just going to lose you up here in a different way.”

He swallowed the bitterness; even now the ache of watching Sidonis walk away needled at him and made the restless ghosts whisper in his head. “We never did talk about it afterward, not really.”

“We didn’t talk about a lot of things,” she said. Regretfully, he thought. Hell, they both had regrets on that score by the dozens.

“Still haven’t.”

She turned until her eyes found his, and without flinching, without blinking, she insisted, “We _will_.”

This turn of conversation ended as the elevator doors opened. Garrus wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed. They stopped a couple of times while crossing the CIC for Shepard to greet members of her shocked crew. Emerson had tears in her eyes as Shepard shook her hand and asked very carefully about family back on Earth, but she practically glowed as she relayed happy news. Garrus wished he’d known to ask, wished he’d know how to make someone as cool and reserved as Emerson smile like that. 

Maybe he could be a decent leader, a good leader, even. He certainly wasn’t disparaging his gift for tactics and his ability to see eight ways a fight might play out instead of the usual person’s one or two. But Shepard? She had a damned _gift_ , and never was it more apparent than when Shepard sighed and said she should go, and Emerson, still glowing, left with a spring in her step. The tenderness with which Shepard moved pieces across the board was something he could not emulate. A person could love her as she shot them point blank, he thought, if she played things right before pulling the gun. They might even thank her in the end. Saren had done it.

It took some maneuvering to get Shepard and her transportation up to the cockpit—stairs really did seem like an unnecessary design stumbling block; he understood now why Solana had griped so vociferously about them. Shepard fiddled with her hoodie’s zipper, up two inches then down two, several times before folding her hands in her lap and nodding her readiness.

Joker swiveled his chair as they entered. “Hey, Commander,” he said, his voice breaking on the last syllable. A moment later he put his face in his hands, his shoulders rounded like a man expecting yet another blow from yet another unseen, unkind hand. Even from several feet away, Garrus saw the shudder convulse down his back.

“Hey, Joker,” said Shepard, wheeling herself forward until their knees touched. “Heard it’s been a rough ride.”

Garrus couldn’t tell if the man was weeping, or only trying very hard not to, but he decided it wasn’t his place to watch, either way. Quietly, respectfully, he stepped back out of the cockpit. As the door closed, Shepard sent him a swift, grateful look, and for a moment—even amidst the questions and confusion and doubts—it was enough. It was _her_ , and it was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest apologies for not being a better correspondent. Please don't take my comment-silence on the last couple of chapters personally; I just couldn't catch up with LIFE STUFF. Things are back to normal now, though, and hopefully I will be back to my usual gushing, grateful self. Thank you all for reading and commenting and theorizing. I appreciate your words more than I can say. <3


	32. In Memories Draped

Garrus stood at slightly-uneasy rest on the other side of the cockpit door, unable even to hear voices murmuring within. Good seals. At the peak of his paranoia, he imagined Shepard wresting control of the ship from Joker and heading in an unknown direction, all part of some plan he hadn’t anticipated. He shook his head, disappointed with himself.

_Then again, perhaps Omega would have had a different ending if there’d been a little more paranoia in play._

Mandibles flicking in irritation, Garrus rolled his neck from side to side. “Omega was never going to have a different ending,” he muttered aloud, into the silence of the corridor leading to the airlock. “Then or later, we were all going to die, and we knew it.”

“Garrus?”

He turned, startled. He hadn’t even heard the door open, though now the sound of it closing again was loud as a gun firing at point-blank range. Shepard tilted her head up, her brows curved down in worry. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her cheeks faintly mottled pink. In her lap, her hands curled, white-knuckled.

He didn’t say he was fine. They both of them held their little lies close, because if they remained unspoken they weren’t breaking the rule of honesty. Or so he told himself. He wondered if she made her excuses the same way. After a long, tense moment, Shepard sighed, and spread her hands out flat against her thighs. “Have I ever told you about Eden Prime?”

He blinked. “Shepard. I, uh, did read the reports.”

“The classified ones? Or just the ones with all the important bits blacked out?”

He huffed a breath. “Fine. I’ll bite. Eden Prime?”

“It was supposed to be a shakedown mission. I imagine that much made it into the reports you saw. Routine. New ship, new crew, new tech. But most of us were a bit skeptical, you know, since there was a Spectre aboard.”

“Nihlus, yeah. He stonewalled me once or twice during my C-Sec years.”

Shepard’s eyebrow arched from worried to amused. “Maybe someday Samara will tell you about _her_ experience with him.”

“Uh, Shepard, not that this isn’t a fascinating detour, but—” 

“Bear with me. Nihlus was there for a couple of reasons. To be the point man on the Prothean beacon mission, but also to evaluate me for the Spectres. All very hush-hush. The kind of need to know where the need doesn’t happen until you’re already almost eyeballs-deep in shit and you’re guaranteed to be wishing you’d gotten in on the know a hell of a lot earlier.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “My least favorite kind of information loop, I might add.”

Garrus didn’t have the faintest idea where Shepard’s ramble was leading, but it was, at least, some indication that yet more of her memories—of the old memories—were still in place. He didn’t think anyone had ever explained Nihlus’ presence on that fateful mission in so many words, but it didn’t, he found, come entirely as a surprise. “Think he’d have given you the nod?”

Leaning back in her chair, she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. Easily, he noticed. Not even a twinge of the pain that had plagued her earlier. It was about time her Cerberus-induced powers of regeneration kicked in, so long as they didn’t end with her seizing like the last time. He shook his head to rid his memory of those screams. Shepard, either oblivious or pretending to be, said, “Hell, I don’t know. I’d like to think so. But the thing is, Eden Prime wasn’t supposed to be the final test; it was, I think, just an initial challenge. I got the impression he was there to judge, yeah, but also to play mentor. Which…yeah. I got left to my own devices to figure out the Spectre thing; I think if Nihlus had been around, maybe that wouldn’t have happened. As learning curves went, it was a goddamned steep one.”

Garrus waited in expectant silence. Finally, Shepard leaned forward and planted her elbows on her knees, her gaze steady under serious brows. “Nihlus wasn’t in command on that mission. A-anderson listened to him, sure, but Nihlus wasn’t calling the shots. Unless, presumably, things went FUBAR. Then he’d likely have stepped in, commandeered the vessel, used his Spectre authority, and hoped to hell the human crew acknowledged its validity.”

“All… right,” Garrus said. His subharmonics held the question he wouldn’t quite let himself ask. He didn’t miss the way Shepard’s voice hitched on her dead mentor’s name—Anderson, not Nihlus—but apart from a twitch of a muscle at her jaw, her face betrayed none of it.

“I’d rather you didn’t have the same steep learning curve I had,” she said finally. “And I’m in no shape to command right now, even if I wanted to.”

He chuckled, once, less a laugh and more a dubious exhalation. “So, what? You’re going to put my name forward for the Spectres and this is my evaluation?”

She didn’t laugh. Or smile. The muscle in her jaw jumped again. “Spectres aren’t made, they’re born. Or so I was told. It was something you wanted, once. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

He shook his head slightly, almost without meaning to. “Shepard, this is—”

“A bit weird, I know.” A fraction of the seriousness slid sideways into thoughtfulness. “And who knows how the politics of this war are going to shake out. I could be offering you a chance at joining a completely defunct organization.” Here her lips turned up, half-smile, half-smirk. “In which case, timing’s a bitch, right?” Turning her palms up, she showed her empty hands and shrugged again. “This is your show, Vakarian. I’m just along for the ride.”

“Hardly,” he replied, still trying to wrap his head around her words, her offer. “So. Do you… have advice?”

She cracked a grin and leaned back on one arm, the picture of ease. “Thought you’d never ask.” She sobered just as swiftly, lowering her voice and casting a look over her shoulder at the still-closed cockpit door. “Don’t leave him alone in there. That’s my advice. I think Edding’s got pilot training. Enough, anyway. Hastings, too.” She shivered, closing her eyes a moment too long. “You and I both know what it’s like, spending too much time alone with thoughts you can’t stop and things you can’t change. He’ll fight it the whole damned way, but he needs the company.” She paused again, and pained, added, “He’s used to company.”

Then, before he could reply, the strangest expression came over her face, somehow startled and pleased and wary all at once. “Incoming,” she muttered. “And us in uncomfortable proximity to the airlock.”

“Wha—”

“This is unacceptable.” Javik snapped. Garrus turned in time to sidestep the angry Prothean’s approach. Javik glared, death in all four eyes, and growled, “Why did you not come to me at once when she woke?”

Garrus blinked. He didn’t think he was imagining the faint green glow the irate Prothean was emitting. “It’s been busy.”

Javik’s sharp, cutting sweep of the arm was almost a biotic trigger, but at the last moment he halted himself. Definitely a glow. “Fool turian.”

Javik stepped around him and turned his gaze on Shepard, who returned his fierceness with a bland smile. Garrus wasn’t sure he’d _ever_ seen Javik voluntarily touch anyone, but the Prothean didn’t hesitate now, settling the pads of his fingertips on Shepard’s head, ever so slightly messing up her hard-won hairstyle. Shepard didn’t wince, but her expression remained so still Garrus couldn’t help thinking the serenity was a bit forced.

When Javik withdrew his hand a moment later, holding his whole arm a little apart as though it pained him, or like it was dirty and he didn’t want to risk contaminating the rest of his body, Shepard opined, “Gotta say, the asari version’s got a lot more fireworks.”

“Bah. Humor. Always humor. It is a sign of weakness.” Still, Javik didn’t look away, and when he spoke again his tone shifted, pensive. “This does not make sense, Commander.”

“Tell me about it.”

Garrus heard the familiar sarcasm, but Javik evidently took it for a suggestion—or an order—because he held his tainted arm up and said, “You appear as you were, and yet… I do not understand. You were… broken. Some cracks remain. Yet the whole is familiar.”

With faint, false cheer, she said, “I got better?”

“Another joke.”

“Well, you did say I appeared as I was. I suppose that means the bad humor was bound to be part of the package.”

Garrus had seen enough examples of Javik’s distaste to recognize it now, although something of the wonderment also remained. He looked a little as though he wanted to walk in circles around Shepard’s chair, taking her in from every angle. Instead he only tilted his head and blinked his four eyelids out of synch, so one pair of eyes was constantly fixed on her. “It does not make sense,” he repeated.

“It’s good to see you, Javik,” Shepard said, this time without irony. “I wasn’t sure I would. I hope you’ve decided the universe might have something to offer an old soldier after all?”

Garrus hadn’t been privy to whatever conversation this was alluding to, but something in Shepard’s posture and the almost-imperceptible answering flinch— _flinch!_ —from Javik told him it was a serious one.

“Perhaps,” Javik said, inscrutable. “And perhaps when the relays are again functional, I will… move on.”

“I’m sure Liara would still give her left arm to collaborate on a book.”

“Bah,” Javik repeated. “The asari is confused.”

Shepard smiled. “Maybe she’s not the only one.”

“You primitives and your endless words,” Javik muttered. “I will be in my chamber. My hand feels of human.” He took a few steps and paused. “I will think on this puzzle.”

“My head’s here any time you need to touch it,” Shepard called out after him. Garrus couldn’t echo her cheer; he still remembered with chilling clarity Javik’s distress after returning from the _Empire_ , and on the rare occasions Garrus slept long enough to dream, the words _thoughts of you remained clear longer than the rest_ kept him company in nightmares he wouldn’t admit to having.

The altercation with Javik over with, the rest of Shepard’s rounds seemed tame in comparison. Not everyone accepted her with the same teary-eyed willingness as Hastings or Emerson. Or Joker. Zaeed and Grunt seemed happy enough to see her. Grunt cried, “Battlemaster!” and gave Shepard the harrowing highlights of his part in the final push, a little like a child telling a parent what they learned in school that day. Zaeed told her a long, rambling story in which, for a change, no one actually died and everyone made it out alive. Garrus supposed that was Zaeed’s idea of something happy, even though he’d described the dead batarians in rather excruciating detail. To her credit, Shepard managed to listen without looking ill.

Tali remained slightly more reserved than Garrus was accustomed to seeing her, but her words of welcome appeared genuine. The tilt of her faceplate found him more than once, and seemed to ask for a private conference later. He nodded slightly. He owed it to her. And he wanted to get her take; with their long-standing relationships, her input and Kaidan’s would be invaluable.

Spirits, it seemed like a long time ago, barreling after Saren with righteous rage on their side. Now when he thought of that version of himself, it was with a sort of grim nostalgia. _That poor kid_ , he thought. _All fired up. Didn’t have the first idea what the hell he was getting himself into._

Jack, once she’d been called up from the hold—some places Shepard’s wheelchair was never going to go, regardless of the importance of seeing her crew in their natural habitat—struck Garrus as particularly wary, perhaps because she’d been present for that initial moment on the _Empire_ when Shepard had been so utterly unlike herself. She didn’t call bullshit, but her answers were short and terse and strangely devoid of expletives. For Jack. She kept squinting at Shepard, that odd gesture humans made when they wished to see something more clearly. Garrus wondered if it ever worked, and why. Finally, hands planted on her hips, she said, “Fuck, Shepard. Enough with the armchair psych. You’re fine, I’m fine, we’re all fucking fine,” and Garrus wondered if that was all the endorsement Shepard needed. She smiled, anyway. That counted for something.

Alenko she saved for last, and Alenko she saw alone. This time when she emerged her eyes were dry, and her cheeks no pinker than usual. Her hands, moving the wheels, were steady. She looked, he thought, as resolved as he’d ever seen her. He just didn’t know what she was so certain about, and he found himself unwilling to ask. 

“So,” Shepard said, when, instead of returning to the medbay, they made their way up to his—their—the cabin. “Who would you send?”

She glared at the stairs down to the little living area, her wheelchair poised on the top step as though she was contemplating just skidding down and hoping for the best. Garrus, with only a moment’s hesitation, bent beside her and offered his neck for her arm. Shepard, with only a moment’s hesitation, accepted it, and the slide of her bare forearm against the warmth of his neck made him shudder. If she felt it, she didn’t comment. Likewise, he didn’t say anything about the sudden flutter in her heart rate.

He didn’t hesitate to sit down beside her, though not as close as he once might have. She didn’t fling her legs over his thigh, or curl her spine against his side; he didn’t run languid hands through her hair or dip his chin to nuzzle her face.

“You’re not going to give me your advice?”

She twitched a brow. “Do you want my advice?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

She shrugged her assent.

Garrus’ mandibles fluttered, then pulled tight. After a long inhale, he asked, “Why _did_ you let Alenko come back aboard? After the coup?”

“Two Spectres are better than one?”

“That’s not the going philosophy.”

She smiled, like he’d said the right thing. “You want to hazard a guess?”

He rubbed his neck, staring hard at the ground between his feet to keep from looking for answers in Shepard’s enigmatic expression. “You don’t always see eye to eye.”

“I don’t _always_ see eye to eye with anyone. Not even you.”

He opened his hand to accept this, and then closed his fingers again. “No, I think that’s _why_ you let him come back. He’s honest. He’s Alliance. And you trusted him to say something about it if you made a bad call.”

When he looked her way, she was still smiling, but the cant of her eyebrows turned sad. “Actually, I didn’t even need him to call me on it. All those conversations, you know.” She tapped the bridge of her nose, and then the outside corner of her right eye, and then her shoulder. “Sometimes Kaidan’s too Alliance to actually say anything, but his body language speaks volumes. The whole galaxy was falling to pieces, and… it was selfish of me, really. To say yes. He should have had a ship of his own, missions of his own, but I kept him on board as an underutilized backup moral compass.” She sighed. “I suspect I owe him an apology, really, when it comes down to it. Except, of course, that he asked me and not the other way around.”

“So you do think I should send Kaidan on Earth recon.”

Shepard’s own body language gave him nothing to work with. “I don’t know. Jack’s much more diplomatic than she used to be.”

His mandibles flared, and he gave his head an amused shake. “Maybe Javik’s right about the humor, Shepard.”

Her responding laugh lurched into a yawn half-way through, and was followed almost as quickly by a mournful sigh. “I suppose that’s my cue to return to the medbay.”

He shifted to move her again, but once she was in his arms, he paused before returning her to the chair. “Do you—it’s more comfortable here. The… bed. I mean.”

She stiffened, but only for a moment. “I don’t want to impose.”

He held her a little closer, unbearably sorry for being the reason she sounded so sad and not at all able to find the words to tell her so. Her arm tightened around his neck. It only took a couple of long strides to bring himself alongside the bed—her side—and settle her lightly on the sheets. “I’ll let the doc know you’re here,” he said, “and give my sister her mobility back.”

“Garrus,” she said, “I—I’m not, I think, the only one who needs a nap. I don’t want you to feel—”

He touched his fingertips to her creased brow. “I… it’s fine. I always sleep on the couch.”

“Get some sleep,” he said, reaching down to free her hair from its binding.

Her dark eyelashes were spiky with unshed tears. The tension in her neck told him she was trying not to lean into his hand.

Gently, he added, “And try not to snore.”

Her lips curved with wry sweetness. “I think we both know who the noisy one is, Vakarian. You snore like a damned Reaper descending.” He snorted and she opened her damp eyes. “Too soon?”

Before he could pull away, she reached for his hand and drew his palm to her lips. The kiss was unbearably soft, unbearably gentle, and over almost before he realized it was happening. She pulled away and closed his fingers, holding his hand in both of hers for a heartbeat longer. Then she released him. He kept his fingers closed, holding the warmth of her lips tight within his hand like a talisman.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He didn’t ask for what, and she didn’t offer further explanation. He paused at the threshold of the cabin, dimming the lights until the room was lit only by the blue glow from the fish tank. Shepard was a dark shape, slight and familiar. In his little glass box, the hamster meeped. Some of Shepard’s clothing was flung over the chair, from when he’d been looking for her hoodie earlier. The desk was liberally populated by his datapads and one or two half-abandoned gun mods.

It looked like home. For the first time in months.


	33. Under the Brown Fog

_She is alone in the woods, except for the whispers. Always with the whispers. Sometimes it is Ashley’s voice, sometimes Mordin’s. Once or twice she hears the smooth velvet of Thane’s, and as always this makes her long for his counsel, for the reassuring presence of him._ Kalahira, mistress of inscrutable depths, I ask forgiveness. _Standing beneath the empty branches, she hears Legion’s voice, mechanical and yet also full of emotion; Legion gave so much—gave everything—to see the geth live, and what had she done? Pointed her gun and shot. Sacrificed them all. Burned the whole goddamned place down, all souls aboard. The artificially intelligent ones, anyway. She waits, listening for EDI, but EDI’s ghost does not speak._

_Some things are different. It’s raining, the patter of drops soft against wood and fallen leaves. A roll of thunder sounds in the far distance, followed a few moments later by a crack of lightning so bright it blinds her until she can blink her sight clear again. Instead of her armor, emblazoned with its N7 and its red and white stripes, she wears a medical gown. The white cotton has gone translucent in the rain; it clings to her emaciated figure. She runs a hand down her ribs, feeling each as distinct as the bars of a xylophone beneath her fingers. She wonders what song they play. She suspects only dirges, only funeral marches and elegies. Laments for the dead. Fitting. Just. Her feet are bare, but at least they hold her weight. This strikes her as significant somehow._

_No wide-eyed, tragic little boy appears for her to chase. She looks for him, turning slowly in a circle. Shades move through the trees. More than ever before. She dreads any coming too close; she is afraid she will recognize their faces and be able to put names to her failures. Without the little boy, she does not know how to choose a direction. She remains frozen and aching. Her head hurts. Her heart hurts. Her empty belly. Her empty hands._

_She does not cry. She is so careful never to start, afraid she might never stop again. And yet lifting her hand to her cheek, she finds it wet, and the wetness is warm, and when she puts her fingers to her lips they taste of salt._

_She almost jumps, almost screams, when a moment later a small hand slips into hers. It is very warm. She expects the little boy, even though he always runs and does not let her touch him, does not let her help. All she wants to do is help. The old pain sears. She expects they will start to burn, now. But when she looks down, a small, red-headed girl lifts huge grey-green eyes and grins at her. She is missing one tooth, and her face is framed by two pigtails curling slightly in the misty rain. Her other arm is wrapped around a purple jar much too big for her. “Hi,” she says, her voice sweet and incongruous beside the whispers of the dead. “I’m not s’posed to be here. Can you take me home?”_

_The girl doesn’t wait for an answer. She wants to say something like_ you’re not supposed to talk to strangers _, but for some reason this little fey creature with the big eyes and the missing tooth seems familiar, so she lets herself be tugged along the path._

_“Are you hungry?” the girl asks after half a dozen steps. “I have some cookies, but there’s not many left. Mama has to make some more. I’m gonna help. You can have one if you want.” She says this with the same air of magnanimity that a little queen might bestow a knighthood upon some worthy soldier._

_She shakes her head, even as her empty stomach rumbles its desire._

_“Did you know your dress is pretty ugly?”_

_This makes her smile._

_“Don’t look up,” the little girl warns. “The scared one is up there.”_

_Once she has been cautioned, though, she cannot stop herself. Her gaze drifts up, and instead of the usual shadows, a very real girl crouches in the tree. Her long red hair is matted with sweat; her eyes are nearly feral with fear. One arm is wrapped tightly around a branch, but the other clutches a screwdriver. Most of the buttons of her blouse are undone. Even from this distance she can see the tiny trail of purpling love bites marking the girl from breast to neck. “Get away,” the girl in the tree hisses. “They’re coming. They’ll see you. They’ll see you if you stay there. They’ll kill you, or worse. Did you know there were worse things than dying? I didn’t. I didn’t know.”_

_“I’d offer her a cookie,” the little girl says morosely, “but I don’t think she’d take it. Don’t you think she needs one? Mama always has cookies in the house, did you know? Just in case, she says. No hurt is too big that a cookie can’t make it better.” The girl tilts her head up, and the young woman in the trees draws back, spine arching like an angry cat’s. “Maybe cookies aren’t enough.”_

_This time she is the one who tugs on the little girl’s hand, though once they are safely away from the woman in the tree, the child once more takes the lead, turning them down a path crowded even more darkly along the sides with shades and shadows. She tries not to hear their voices. Tries not to put faces to them. Fails. Her hideous spiral of self-recrimination is broken only by the child holding her hand, who stops so abruptly she nearly stumbles over her._

_“Wow. Look at_ her _dress,” the little girl murmurs wonderingly, with unabashed desire._

_She looks. This young woman is sitting hunched over on one of the benches she has never seen used. The dress in question is a frothy confection of white silk and chiffon, spangled with rhinestones like starbursts, its layers ruffled even by the almost nonexistent breeze. Bent as she is, and long red hair fallen from its formal pinned-up style, she cannot see the woman’s face. Her hands are pressed tightly against her stomach. A ribbon is wound around one of them; she thinks it once was pink, though now it is stained the rusty red of old blood._

_“Why is she sitting like that?” says the little girl, hugging her cookie jar close. “Is she hungry? Do you think_ she _wants a cookie?”_

She isn’t hungry, _she thinks with certainty, though she doesn’t know where that certainty springs from._ She’s dying. _She speaks none of these words aloud._

 _The young woman on the bench lifts her face. A perfectly round little bullet hole marks her, right in the middle of her forehead. Almost innocuous, like an afterthought. She can’t look anywhere else. “We died for you,” the young woman rasps, her voice like screaming, like broken glass, a million times worse than any other whispers these woods have ever thrown her way. “We died for you, and what have you done for us? You don’t even remember. You don’t even_ remember _.”_

_Finally, finally, she finds her voice. Choking, drowning, she says, “What do you need me to do?”_

_“It’s too late for that now. It’s too late. We’re not supposed to be here.” The young woman struggles to her feet, stumbles, falls, crawls forward, the wound on her forehead oozing blood. “Don’t you understand? We were never supposed to be here!”_

_Beside her, the little girl is sobbing, begging for her mama. Her cookie jar has fallen to the ground and shattered. Four little cookies turn to mush in the rain. Out in the trees, she hears the shriek of the scared one, trapped in her prison of branches. And still the one in the white dress drags herself forward, her eyes, her familiar eyes, her big grey-green eyes, unblinkingly fixed on her. She falls again, flat on her belly, and this time the attempts to pull herself upright and forward are met with failure. Cheek-down in the mud, the girl in the white dress mumbles_ too late, too late, too late _while the little girl wails, “I want to go home! I want to go home!” and the scared one in the trees screams her fear like a soul being murdered._

_The rain falls and falls. Thunder. Lightning reveals faces she doesn’t want to see._

_Her empty hands are useless. She can’t fix the cookie jar. She doesn’t know where home is. She can’t stop them coming. She can’t stop worse things than dying. She can’t help. She can’t remember._

_She can’t breathe._

_She can’t breathe._

#

Shepard woke gasping, clawing at the sheets.

“A nightmare,” she whispered. “Nothing real. Wake up. Wake up.”

The lingering pain felt real, though, and lingering shadows danced behind her eyes. She remembered different voices, different screams, a different brand of terror, but try as she might, she couldn’t place the sources.

Instead of a hulking turian in his usual place on the couch, the other current inhabitant of the cabin was Jack, leaning against the fish tank, slender arms crossed over her tattooed chest. Shepard spared a thought to wonder if the force of that glare had been the impetus for her waking. The other woman looked as volatile as ever she had when Shepard first pulled her out of the wreckage of the _Purgatory._

Blinking the last of her dream-confusion away, she dragged herself upright. Sleep hadn’t diminished her persistent headache. “Where’s Garrus?”

“Are you fucking with him?”

Shepard blinked again, lips parted in mute surprise. Jack, eyes narrowed, paced at the foot of the bed like an animal in a cage, waiting for the moment of inattention and the opportunity to strike. Shepard just couldn’t figure out why Jack, of all people, would want to strike _her_. “I’m… sorry?”

“Don’t give me that shit. I never had a thing for the bony bastards, but when you deal with cops out here, you deal with turians. I’ve learned how their expressions work, you know? Pissed on a turian doesn’t look the same way pissed on a human looks. Neither does fucking heartbroken. And neither does bat-shit crazy.”

“And you think… what? You think Garrus is all of these?”

“I don’t think,” Jack snapped, jerking an angry finger in Shepard’s direction. _If pointing fingers could kill_. Except, of course, with Jack they _could._ Had she been using her biotics. Shepard was never more grateful _not_ to see a blue glow. “I _know_. What I don’t know is whether or not you’re fucking with him on purpose. If this is a con, it’s pretty fucking long. But I’ve seen some long cons before, and this? This looks like one fucking _tailor-made_ to destroy him, with all the collateral damage of the fallout as bonus.”

A little of her own ire rose at this, compounded by her immobility. The disparity in their heights and situations immediately put Jack at advantage Shepard didn’t much care for. “If you actually thought I was running a con, would you tell me about it? Aren’t you afraid of, I don’t know, spooking me?”

“Be spooked,” Jack snarled. “I mean, damn. You’ve got her down good. Even this thing you’re doing now, this ‘who do you think you are talking to me like that?’ is fucking textbook Shepard. But I was there. I know what I saw. And it wasn’t you.”

Shepard sighed, aggrieved. “On the _Empire_ , you mean. I told you. I don’t _remember_ —”

“Yeah? Want me to jog that for you?”

Before Shepard could protest, Jack flung herself down (Shepard stopped herself from shrinking away, but only through a massive force of will) and brought up the screen of an omni-tool. Voices materialized before the image did; Shepard recognized her own voice—her own voice, but _strange_ , saying, _“I—sorry, the turian’s making me uneasy. Do you think he could wait outside?”_

By the time Garrus, sounding as wounded as she’d ever heard him, replied with, _“I’m Garrus Vakarian,”_ the image was in place. It had obviously been taken by Jack’s omni-tool; the view was of Garrus’ back and Shepard sitting upright on a bed she didn’t remember in a room she didn’t remember, wearing the kind of expression she usually saved for people she had to be polite to but didn’t care for very much.

Like a puppet wearing her face, the Shepard in the vid said, _“Do you mind, uh, Mr. Vakarian?”_ like she didn’t know him at all. Worse. Like he he _did_ make her uneasy. Like she was expecting him to turn on her. Shepard’s gut twisted and she swallowed the bile that rose in the back of her throat.

“Oh, God,” she whispered as Jack’s voice, loud on the vid, muttered _“What the_ fuck _?”_

Because of the angle, Shepard had a close-up view of Garrus’ expression as he turned away. She put a hand to her mouth, and searing tears spilled from her eyes before she could will them away or blink them back. _What have I done to him? Oh, God, what have I done?_ She didn’t close her eyes, though, no matter how much she wanted to, and Jack’s vid continued to run while, on it, Kaidan attempted to assess the situation. The woman on the bed who wore her face smiled at him emptily and asked inane questions Kaidan didn’t even bother attempting to answer. The woman didn’t seem to care. This struck Shepard as deeply wrong; she _hated_ being denied answers to her questions. This pallid version of herself only continued blinking and breathing and murmuring vapidly.

The vid only ended after Doctor Chakwas arrived and Jack was left on the other side of the medbay doors, followed by a team that looked as numb and shocked as Shepard felt now.

“See, that’s one of the things with teaching kids; you get used to filming fucking _everything_. They always need to see what they did, after. Especially biotic kids, where the gestures count so much. And if they got hurt, we needed to know where, and how, and what hit ‘em. So when we walked into that room and you were so fucked up, I guess it was second nature to just hit record.”

“Thank you for showing me,” Shepard murmured, her cheeks hot and wet with the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. Jack pretended not to notice them, and Shepard found herself stupidly grateful for this small mercy. “I… don’t… I don’t remember any of that. I don’t— _fuck._ ”

“Yeah, well it only got more horrible later. Like there was nothing _worse_ that could’ve hurt the bastard, you know? Basically you almost died at least once a day, and then you had this _bone-shattering_ seizure, and then you woke up like this. Good as fucking new.” Jack shifted, reaching for Shepard’s face with surprisingly gentle fingers. Shepard didn’t fight her as she lifted her chin and stared long and hard into her face. “But you’re either the best fucking actress in the goddamned galaxy, or you’re telling the truth.” The anger in her face didn’t disappear, but at least Shepard no longer felt like the full force of it was directed at her. “I had to see for myself.”

“I understand. I do.” Shepard swallowed; it hurt, with the angle of her throat. “How did they do that to me? _Who_ did that to me?”

“If we knew we sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting here with our thumbs up our asses, would we?” Jack blew out a heavy exhale and shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll find the fuckers, we’ll make ‘em pay. It’s what we do, right?”

“Right,” Shepard echoed. The strangeness of having seen herself on the vid combined with the leftover restless horror of her dream made her head ache. Even more. _Who’s making who uneasy now?_ “Jack? You know… do you know the story of the Trojan Horse?”

“Bunch of idiots opened their door because they thought a giant fucking wooden horse was some kind of present and surprise! It was full of assholes who killed ‘em all while they slept?”

Shepard nodded. “If I—if they—look, I want you to promise me something.”

Jack arched an inquisitive eyebrow, even as her full lips drew down in an unpleasant frown. “Don’t think I like where this one’s going.”

“If I’m compromised… if I do _anything_ to hurt this crew, this ship, innocent people, _anything_ , I want you to promise you’ll blow me up and ask questions later. Any means necessary.” Shepard’s hand closed into a helpless fist at her side. “I can’t—I already—I’ve got a lot of blood on my hands already. I don’t want to start adding to it. Especially if the woman on your vid shows up again. She’s… I don’t know who she is, but she scares the living fuck out of me.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like me. Leave the cursing to the professionals, Shepard.”

Shepard didn’t take the offered bait, and Jack’s attempt at deflecting foundered and sank. “I trust you to act if it’s necessary. That you came here today proves that much. Hell, I’m _glad_ you confronted me.”

“That wasn’t what I—”

“Promise me, Jack. Please. Or I’ll preemptively take myself out. I mean it about having enough blood on my hands.”

“Dirty pool, Shepard.” Jack muttered, ducking her head. “Dirty fucking pool.”

Shepard reached out, curling her hand around one of Jack’s. The slim, well-inked fingers trembled. “You know what it’s like to be used. You know I’d shoot anyone in the face who tried to do it to you again. So if I’m the one… if I’m the one being used? Put me out of my goddamned misery, and then kill every single one of the bastards who did it to me.”

“Fine,” Jack said after a very long pause broken only by the burble of the fish tank VI. Her voice was steely and resolved, and it granted Shepard a tiny measure of peace. “I promise.”

“And don’t… it’s probably better if you don’t tell Garrus about… this.”

“Fuck, Shepard,” Jack said. “I don’t have a death wish. Much. Anymore.”

“But after? If you… if there’s an after? Remind him of the Trojan Horse. Tell him it’s like the gift from Grixos. He’ll remember.”

“He won’t thank me.”

Shepard’s lips twisted in a pained smile. “But I will.”


	34. Went on in Sunlight

If she’d had both legs—and she _would_ soon, sooner even than she’d hoped, if what Doctor Chakwas had just told her was true—Solana would’ve had a bounce in her step as she made her way from the medbay to the elevator. As it was, she contented herself with swinging her arms a little more exuberantly than usual as she wheeled her chair down the hall. The burst of speed nearly sent her careening into one of the shocked human crew members, and she grinned as she skidded to an abrupt halt and offered a meek apology. The man’s face contorted in one of the strange human expressions Solana didn’t recognize before he moved away in the opposite direction. Fear? Uneasiness? It didn’t matter. She was going to have _legs_ , plural, again.

Her good mood faltered somewhat when the door slid open and she maneuvered herself into an eerily quiet shuttle bay. Major Alenko looked up from the weaponry workbench and lifted his eyebrows. She was trying to parse the meaning of it—nowhere _near_ that mobile, turian browplates were therefore used to punctuate far fewer variations in emotion, whereas humans were constantly wiggling their furry brows—when he said, “Sorry. You just missed your brother. I think he was headed to the cockpit. You might be able to catch him there.”

“I wasn’t looking for Garrus,” Solana admitted, pushing herself closer. Alenko held a sweet little pistol in one hand and a completely underpowered scope-mod in the other. “Aren’t you about to leave?”

He put down the scope—just as well, since she’d been about to snatch it out of his hand and _break_ it if he attempted to abuse such a nice piece of equipment with a modification so substandard—and said, “Cortez is just doing final checks and then we’re off, yeah.”

“No one’s here?” Alenko reached for an even more wretched extended barrel and Solana leaned forward to bat it out of his hand. It clanged as it bounced off the bench and onto the floor. _Good riddance._ His eyes widened, but he didn’t try to retrieve it. “I see you rate quite the going-away party.”

“Ahh.” If he’d had subharmonics, the meaning behind the vowel would’ve been clear, but as it was Solana had no idea. Perhaps humans didn’t… say goodbye to their colleagues? Friends? Somehow she doubted that. In her albeit limited experience, humans tended toward the effusive where emotion was concerned. Before she could ask, he explained, “I went to see Tali before I came down here. No point pulling her away from engineering. Javik doesn’t like anyone, except _maybe_ Shepard on a good day. Garrus gave me his orders, and the closest thing I’m going to get to well wishes. The rest of this crew, they… they’re Shepard’s people. I haven’t really served with them. They don’t—well. Doesn’t much matter. I imagine they’ll be more interested with what I bring _back_.”

“Well,” she said, “you’ve been the closest damned thing to a friend to me, so I’m here to send you off. And not just because I’m interested in your intel.” She smirked. “Though, that said, I’m very interested in your intel.”

His face did that human thing where the skin went momentarily a shade pinker. Funny, that. She supposed they must get used to it; she still found the change rather comical, though she didn’t embarrass either of them by actually laughing. Then he said, “Is Brooks still under?”

Solana nodded. “I think the doctor intends to keep her that way until further notice, now that Shepard’s… functioning. Uh, the Justicar is still in there, though. Glowing.”

Human smiles, at least, were easy enough to understand. Solana supposed she was still missing about fifteen layers of possible meaning and significance, but this gesture merely struck her as kind. “Samara’s not going to do anything to you.”

Solana shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know. I have a long history of my curiosity getting the better of my good sense—my dad’s words—and something tells me that fabled Code of hers doesn’t look all that kindly on… curiosity.”

“Shepard hasn’t lost any crew to Samara’s Code yet,” Alenko reassured her. “And you’ve met Jack. And Grunt.”

“Here’s hoping you’re proven right.”

“Just try not to steal any of _her_ things.”

“Borrow,” Solana insisted. “ _Improve_.”

“I don’t think it’s considered an improvement if you don’t give them back.”

“My brother is a lying liar and has doubtless been spreading very nasty rumors about me for his own devious purposes.”

Alenko snorted. “Solana, I saw you swipe that sniper rifle piercing mod just now. What is it? Level four?”

She retrieved the mod in question and replaced it on the bench.

Alenko kept staring at her. Pointedly. Sighing, she also fished the rarer and far more interesting level five thermal scope from beneath the thigh of her truncated leg. Instead of admonishing her, though, he only shrugged. “Shepard won’t care, you know. You could cart most of this stuff off and she’d probably never notice, unless you started messing with _her_ gunsand _her_ mods.”

He paused, rifling through another pile of gun mods. When it looked like he was going to go with a perfectly useless melee stunner, she made a disapproving noise and he dropped it, raising his eyes to meet hers. 

She sighed and shook her head. “You good with that thing?”

He blinked at the change of subject and glanced down at the gun as though he’d never seen it before. “Sure.”

Flicking her mandibles in amusement she appended, “No, I mean are you _headshot_ good with it?”

His shoulders straightened and his chin lifted. “I hold my own.”

“Can I see it?”

He handed it over, and she couldn’t help the pleased sound that escaped her. Most weapons, she could tell whose hands they were designed for. A turian might be able to use a salarian weapon and vice versa, but the weight and balance were never quite right. This gun wasn’t turian. Or salarian. Or even human. It was so gloriously engineered she couldn’t tell whose grip it was meant for, but it didn’t matter, because it felt like it’d been designed for no hand but her own. “Spirits,” she murmured, turning the weapon over before sighting down its length and pointing it across the empty bay. “That’s a pretty little gun. Almost makes me wish I favored pistols.”

“Let me guess,” Alenko said, gesturing toward one of the racks against the wall, “sniper rifles, like your brother.”

“Actually,” she retorted pertly, “sniper rifles like my _mother_.”

He chuckled. “My mistake. She must be a formidable lady.”

“She was,” Solana replied. She hadn’t supposed a human ear could pick up the deep thrum of residual grief in her subharmonics, but Alenko’s expression shifted and his shoulders slumped. Before he could apologize or offer condolences or pity her— _Spirits,_ but she hated the pity—she gestured with his gun and said, “I’ve never seen one of these before. And that is, if I say so myself, saying something.” She wanted— _badly_ —to see how it actually handled, but the hold of a ship when the owner of the piece was half an hour out from mission departure was hardly the time. She sighed, lowering it again.

Alenko, much to her relief, went along with her change of subject. “It’s a Spectre-grade Paladin V. But if you like rifles, you should see Shepard’s Black Widow. Thing’s almost as tall as she is and probably nearly as heavy. One shot, one kill. Damn near _anything_.”

“You’re kidding me. They improved on the M-98? My brother told me she had one of _those_ , though from the specs I didn’t think mere mortals could actually shoot that damned thing.”

This time Alenko’s smile was smaller, tighter. Sadder, she realized. “Your first mistake is thinking she’s a mere mortal. Shepard’s Shepard. The rules don’t apply. Whether she might want them to or not.”

Solana didn’t know what to say to this, so she reached instead for the best pistol mod on the workbench, a fifth level cranial trauma system, with a particularly nice ultralight materials modification to offset the added weight. Alenko, watching her, made an appreciative noise in the back of his throat. If she’d had a few hours and some quiet, she could’ve cannibalized some of the more useless parts to throw together a spectacular sighting scope, too, but that would’ve entailed a lot more body work to make it fit right.

“Aim for the head,” she said when she was finished, handing him his gun handle-first.

“That’s… I’ve never seen anyone mod a gun like that.”

She huffed a breath. “Believe me when I say it’s nothing. Next time give me a day’s warning.”

Holstering the gun, he inclined his head. “I owe you one.”

“Let me hold the Black Widow and we’ll call it even. I don’t even need to shoot it.”

He chuckled. “Seems fair. Of course, Shepard’ll have my head, or worse, if she finds—ah.” The mirth died and his whole demeanor shifted so abruptly Solana was afraid she’d somehow broken him. “Right,” he continued, after a very long moment. “Shepard’s… isn’t here.” He ducked his head and turned a little pale. “Garrus has one. But I think he’s got it up in the cabin.”

Of course Shepard’s gun was gone. She felt foolish for asking, but instead of adding to the sudden heaviness in the room, she tried one of her brother’s tricks. Humor always seemed to work for him, even when, by all rights, it shouldn’t have. Sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest she asked with mock indignation, “ _Garrus_ has a Spectre-model sniper rifle? How’d he swing that?”

A flash of white teeth bared in a brief smile, and the weight of sorrow began to lift. Hell. Maybe her stupid brother knew what he was doing with the endless quips after all. “Nepotism?” He waved a hand dismissively. “I’m joking. Mostly. Shepard’s all for following the rules unless she can’t see a good reason why the rules exist. Turns out when you’re the weapon the galaxy keeps pointing at the Reapers, she doesn’t care so much about the letter of the Spectre-gear-for-Spectres-only law. She got the best equipment she could beg, borrow or steal, and she gave it to whomever needed it or could best use it.” He laughed softly, shaking his head. “She spent _two hundred and fifty thousand credits_ on an M-11 Wraith at Spectre Requisitions, even though I don’t think she’s touched a shotgun since basic training. But Tali loves the stupid thing.”

“I don’t know if I’m more astonished that she’d do it, or that anyone—even Spectre Requisitions; _especially_ Spectre Requisitions—thought it was okay to charge _Commander Shepard_ anything. While she was, you know, busy trying to save the galaxy.”

This earned a full laugh, nothing soft or restrained about it. “You make sure to give Shepard that opinion some time. She’ll appreciate it. When tipsy, it’s one I’ve heard her espouse herself. Usually accompanied by the violent application of a fist to the tabletop. She’ll probably buy you a drink. Or, you know, some kind of overpriced weaponry.” Still grinning, his fuzzy eyebrows doing incomprehensible things, he gestured toward her. “Okay, Solana. Not that I don’t believe you’re here to see me off, but do you want to tell me the rest yet? Because Cortez’ll be ready to leave any minute.”

“The rest?” she said uneasily.

“You and Garrus fidget the same way when you’re nervous. I may not have Shepard’s superhuman observational skills, but I’ve had ample time to note your brother’s various and sundry neck rolls and mandible twitches.” His smile was not unkind. “You’d probably be shifting from foot to foot if you were standing.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but laughed instead. “Oh, you’re right. I probably would. And you’re right, my motives may be slightly—ever so slightly, mind you—ulterior.”

“Mmm.” The continued presence of his smile rendered the otherwise inscrutable noise friendly.

“My dad,” she said. “You need to talk to him.”

“So Garrus indicated.”

“No,” she insisted. “You need to talk to him about Garrus, too. I’d do it if I were going with you. My dad… look, my dad is _damned good_ at what he does, but he can’t work without all the available information. I don’t know what Garrus told you, but I’m saying you need to tell him _everything_. He’ll probably make you repeat yourself a dozen times. Maybe two dozen. Don’t get upset or offended; he sees things other people don’t see, but sometimes the process is frustrating. For both sides.” She smiled to steal the sting of seriousness from her words. “Every time we got in trouble as kids, the interrogation was worse than the punishment.” Grave again, she added, “My dad might be leery about trusting you. Say Sol wanted you to talk to him. Call me Sol, not Solana. That’ll mean something. And then tell him I will never try to make him eat velara fruit ever again if he gives you his full attention. All right? And just… please. Please don’t leave—”

“Anything out,” Kaidan finished for her. “I got it. Though, if it… if it makes you feel better, your brother gave me the same orders. Nothing about velara fruit. But he told me to be honest about everything as I saw and understood it, even if it wasn’t complimentary.”

“Oh, good,” Solana breathed, the flood of relief nearly overwhelming. “It means he’s—it’s just good. That’s all.” She took a deep breath and tried with limited success to steady her shaking hands. “You’re Alliance through and through, Major Alenko, and I’m turian—I know all about loyalty and honor above all else, I do. But I… I have to ask _Spectre_ Alenko for a favor.”

“Ominous.”

“You—did my brother tell you about Shepard’s book? The one from the _Empire_?”

Alenko nodded, tilting his head in confusion. The head tilt was really very similar to the turian version; if she’d been less nervous, she’d have smiled at the abrupt species similarity. Instead she reached into her tunic and withdrew a tiny information chip. In spite of her best efforts, her hand still trembled as she reached for his hand, dropped the chip into it, and pressed his fingers closed around it. “I need you to take that to my dad. And I need you not to show it to anyone else. Not the admiral. Not the primarch. Not even your oldest friends. Until my dad gives them the okay, everyone is suspect.”

Glancing down at his closed hand, Alenko frowned. “Have you considered that your dad might be compromised?”

“He isn’t.”

“Solana…”

She shook her head. “I know he isn’t. He was _decades_ at C-Sec and never took a bribe or let something slide or took the easy way instead of the right one.”

“That you know of.”

“ _Never_ , Major. Not once. Look, I—I might not be in the Shadow Broker’s league, but can we chalk my certainty up to the curiosity I mentioned earlier? I know my dad’s clean. I know you can trust him. And I don’t know about anyone else.”

“You’re trusting me.”

She held out a hand. It shook. “It’s costing me. And I hope I’m as right about you as I _know_ I’m right about my father.”

He nodded grimly, but his response was forestalled by the crackle of the comms, and Shepard’s voice saying, “Hey, Kaidan, you still down there?”

“Just about to leave. Cortez is giving me a thumbs up. Just letting Solana Vakarian give my Paladin a once-over.”

“Ahh, Solana. Feel free to come up here and visit me later. I promise not to steal your chair.” Shepard’s laugh was tinny over the comm, but sounded no less sincere for it. “And as for you, Kaidan, Steve will get you there and back in one piece. It’s just the politics you have to navigate on your own.”

“That’s the worst part.”

“Isn’t it just.” A pause, but not the dead-silence pause of the comms being cut. “Kaidan, be careful.”

“Always am, Shepard.”

“You always are,” she agreed. “But this time be even more careful, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“None of that now, Major.”

Solana saw Alenko’s soft, sad smile even though Shepard couldn’t. “Aye, aye. Ma’am.”

Shepard sighed, long-suffering. “Remember what I said.”

“I will, Shepard. But you remember what _I_ said, too.”

Solana wondered if, up in her cabin, Shepard was smiling a similar soft, sad smile; her voice sounded like it. “Godspeed, Kaidan. Shepard out.”

Alenko bowed his head, and even though she wanted desperately to pry, Solana held her tongue. After a minute of watching Alenko wrestle with his thoughts, he lifted his head. “I’ll take the information to your dad. I won’t show it to anyone else.” His eyes, when he looked at her, were damp, the corners tense and more deeply lined than they’d been only a moment before. “She’ll be a friend if you need one. The best you can ask for. You can even love her, if you want; she makes it easy. But don’t trust her. Not right now.”

Solana nodded. Cortez poked his head out the fighter’s side and yelled some phrase about burning daylight, and Alenko flashed him an _on my way_ hand gesture. 

“Thank you, Major,” Solana said quietly, sincerely. “And… and happy hunting.”

He raised his eyebrows again. “Solana? You said I was the closest thing you had to a friend. But my friends don’t call me ‘Major.’ They call me Kaidan.”

Her mandibles flicked wide in a sheepish smile. “I’ll work on it.”

“That’s all I ask.” He holstered a battered old Vindicator to his back and rolled his neck. “See you soon. Two weeks. Maybe ten days, if we’re lucky.”

Her smile widened into a grin. “I’ll have my leg by then, you know.”

His face split in a similarly wide smile. “Then I expect to see you kicking ass and taking names—literally—when I get back.”

All the gestures she knew—handshakes, hugs, back-patting, saluting—seemed wrong. She settled on a wave. Alenko—Kaidan—halfway to the shuttle, echoed it. When he ducked inside the little ship, she folded her still-shaky hands in her lap and thought what a tremulous thing hope was, to have so very much weight so constantly riding on it.


	35. Stay With Me

Garrus stood at the cabin door for a while before entering. Through the door, he heard the faint beat of music, though he was certain Shepard was sleeping. Doctor Chakwas had insinuated that, after her last visit a few hours ago, her patient would sleep a solid eight hours, whether she felt like it or not. The doctor had also hinted that perhaps Shepard was not the only one who required a medical helping hand in such matters, and Garrus pocketed the sedatives she offered without comment, not, of course, intending to take them.

Three days Alenko and Cortez had been gone. Given the speedy nature of the craft they’d borrowed from Samara, they were likely near Earth, if not arrived already. Garrus couldn’t help feeling it was something of a—Shepard had a term for it, one she used most often when Hackett was directing her out to the middle of nowhere for no good reason—fool’s errand. Still, any intel was better than no intel, and he had to hope Liara, at least, might have a stockpile of information she simply hadn’t felt comfortable relating over the possibly-compromised QEC.

All he wanted was a direction to point his gun, and a target to shoot it at.

Even though he felt the weightiness of time passing without answers, three days was three days longer for Shepard to heal, and that counted for something. It had been nearly a week since she woke… as herself, and with no more of the devastating seizures resetting her progress, her cybernetic bone and muscle weaves were proving more up to the task of providing actual healing; Chakwas was pleased and insisted Shepard would certainly be back on her feet— _slowly and carefully and for very short periods of time_ —within the week. (“Provided,” she’d added with a glare, “my patient behaves herself and does not attempt to accelerate the timeline of recovery herself.” Shepard had responded with a wide-eyed, penitent nod no one was taken in by; Garrus was pretty sure she’d already tried to hoist herself out of bed on more than one occasion while she had the cabin to herself.)

For three days, when he wasn’t down in engineering helping Tali contain a series of escalating—though ultimately, Tali assured him, not ship- or life-threatening—drive core problems no doubt caused by the inadequate and hurried repairs, Garrus watched as his sister and Shepard bent their heads together over the damned book from the _Empire_ , trying and failing to come up with a code that made sense of all the variables. They’d tried a number of things, using both the human alphabet and turian, but thus far without breaking the cipher. Occasionally his sister made Shepard laugh, but not enough. Never enough. In the brief interludes he spent in the cabin when they were both awake, he could see tension like a weight on Shepard’s shoulders, and the creases in her brow were looking likely to take up permanent residence.

He hated that he was the source of at least some of those furrows. They were trapped in a terrible cycle, with too many aborted conversations and unspoken words between them. Every hour that passed made the inevitable conversation harder to start, and he knew she was waiting for him to do it. She’d spoken first, after all; she’d made herself clear. He could hardly expect her to keep throwing herself against his defenses, no matter how much she wanted answers.

He didn’t know what to say, and so he said nothing at all. His hands ached to fix the broken thing between them, but it was so much more complicated than a Thanix cannon or a hiccuping drive core. He could out-calibrate a damned _geth_ or a sentient dreadnought intent on his destruction, but he couldn’t find a way to put _there’s no Shepard without Vakarian_ back together again.

At least those ever-present worry lines smoothed when she slept. Reminding himself of this, he let himself into the cabin, and hated himself for thinking of the doctor’s sedative as a reprieve. 

Shepard, in bed but definitely awake, lifted her head at his arrival and smiled. It was a genuine smile, he knew, but not without cost, pain and pleasure mixed in equal parts. 

Solana was gone, but Shepard still held the book and a little mirror on her lap, alongside several scribbled-on pieces of paper. “Hi,” she said, pushing everything onto the bed beside her. “Long day?”

If he didn’t pay attention to the brittleness of the smile, or the tentativeness never present before in her greetings, it was all so damned normal. And he couldn’t tell if he dreaded that normalcy, or wanted it.

He was pretty sure the scale tipped toward _want._

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he accused lightly, coming to the top of the stairs. 

“I spit them out,” she said, waving a hand at the bedside table, where, sure enough, a couple of white pills lay, looking slightly the worse for wear. “After hiding them under my tongue.”

Garrus snorted, reaching into his pocket and plucking out a pair of pale blue dextro pills, holding them up for Shepard to see. “Her first mistake was not giving you an injection. Her second was not physically forcing you to swallow.”

“Right, and you’re better?” Her smile turned soft as she lifted her chin, gesturing at his hand. “You’re planning on choking those down like a good little turian?”

He sighed, sitting on the end of the couch and placing his pills in the middle of the low table. He stared at them, as if staring might make them disappear. Or might make him want to swallow them. “I think she’s under the misapprehension that I _can’t_ sleep.”

“When the truth is you don’t want to?”

He glanced up, startled. She was looking right at him, expression so unguarded and wounded it made him shudder. 

“She tried to give me an injection,” Shepard explained, rubbing absently at her arm. “I panicked. Can you imagine?” Her laugh didn’t sound all that amused. There was a faintly appalled undertone to it. “I fought a Reaper on foot. With a fancy _laser pointer._ And now, all of a sudden, I’m afraid of needles? _Needles._ Of all the stupid things.”

A chill ran the length of his spine as he remembered that mostly-empty box of syringes from the _Empire_ , and the… the blank-Shepard’s reaction to Chakwas trying to inject her with painkillers in the medbay. Not that stupid, perhaps. At least this time Chakwas hadn’t ended up with a broken nose and dislocated shoulder for her trouble.

“You’re thinking this is something leftover from whatever they did to me on that ship,” Shepard said. “Yeah. Same.” She tilted her head back to stare out the window above her. “I’m afraid I’ll sleep and when I wake up I won’t remember again. Or you’ll… you’ll tell me I’m not myself, and I won’t remember why you’d think that.”

He swallowed hard. “I’m afraid of that, too.”

“And then I’m afraid, whether I sleep or not, whether I’m me or not, you’re always going to look at me the way you look at me now.”

“Shepard,” he whispered, like a plea, like a prayer. “I—I don’t—”

“It’s not your fault,” she insisted, though her voice broke on the last syllable. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. She took a deep breath he could hear all the way from the couch, and balled her hands in the sheets at her sides. “I mean that. Y-you—you can’t help what happened. I don’t… I don’t blame you. You know that, right? I can’t… I don’t _blame_ you.”

Through it all, her eyes remained fixed on the stars. It reminded him uncomfortably of his sister staring at that full bottle of horrible brandy, wanting to drown her sorrows in it, or the way his whole world had narrowed to the view through his sniper scope on that perch in the base on Omega, before Shepard showed up. He knew Shepard had loved the stars once; he knew why she didn’t anymore. She wasn’t admiring a view; she was facing an enemy. Without even a fancy laser pointer. And she was doing it without anyone at her six.

After a deep breath of his own, he took the few steps necessary to cross the room. Lost in her private battle, she didn’t acknowledge him until he sat down on the edge of the bed beside her, and touched his fingertips to the side of her face to bring her back. She blinked, finally pulling her eyes from the window above, and sucked in a great, gasping gulp of air, turning her face until her cheek was cradled in his palm. Her hand flew to her throat and then twitched as if she wanted to reach for him before falling back to her lap. It was, he realized, a strange backward echo of their final parting on Earth, only this time she was the one battle-broken, wounded, and pulled too early from a fight she so desperately didn’t want to lose.

He, half-delirious with agony and denying he needed to leave at all, at least had Tali holding him up back then. Shepard was alone, once again drowning in the breathless void, trying to hold everything together with futile hands. And failing, because they both knew one person couldn’t hold onto another if they weren’t willing to be held.

“Oh, Shepard,” he whispered.

“It surprises me to realize how happy I was. Before.” She plucked at the fabric pulled taut across her lap, before continuing in a rush, “Not all the time, of course. Not when I was losing people or thinking about losing people or knowing losing more people was inevitable. Not, though I joke about it now, when I was fighting that Reaper on foot. Not when I was lying broken-legged in the elevator of a very unfriendly ship. But there were moments, Garrus, oh, there were moments, and they were worth all the rest. You were part of most of them. You _gave_ me most of them. I wish I could… I wish I could do the same, you know. For you. Now.”

“You want to take me bottle-shooting on top of the Presidium?”

She smiled against his hand. “Hell, Vakarian, I’d even dance in public with you again, if I had working legs.”

His _ha_ was only one soft exhalation, barely a laugh at all, but since any kind of laughter had been in short supply it felt twice as dear for having been hard-won.

“Or I could tell you to sleep,” she said, with a touch more gravity. Her brow was furrowed again; he wanted to smooth away the tension with his thumb, wanted to ease grief and fear and worry with one of those moments of something like joy. “It would probably do you more good, in the long run. I could say something like, oh, I don’t know, we both know you need a clear head? There’s no room for mistakes?” The smile shifted toward wry; he wanted to stop it before it went bitter, but didn’t know how. “I know where you sleep. I’ll wake you if anything comes up?”

This time he laughed three _ha_ s in a row.

Shepard, bolstered, insisted, “You can even take the bed. I’ve had my turn, and my bones can deal with the couch for a change.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

“Garrus—”

He swallowed, unable to still the nervous flutter of his mandibles. “There’s plenty of room.”

“Oh,” she said, blinking, her pale cheeks flushing ever so slightly pink. “I—oh.”

“Unless you—”

She shook her head a little, not enough to pull her face from the touch of his hand. “I only thought you—it’s fine. Of course it’s fine. My oversized bed is your oversized bed. We can even build a barrier of pillows, if you want.”

He was close enough to hear her breath catch when he brought his brow to hers. He didn’t close his eyes. Neither did she. “Shepard,” he said, “tell me something true.”

“This doesn’t fix everything,” she said after a moment’s thought. “It… it might just be a bandage, but bandages are better than bleeding out?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Sounds about right.” Taking another deep, steadying breath, he admitted, “I… didn’t… I didn’t stop either. But I—it’s—Shepard, I can’t _promise_ —”

“I know,” she said. “I understand.” She sounded like she did, and he found himself wondering if someone had, at last, given her a more thorough briefing than _you weren’t yourself._ “I’m glad you’re willing to try.”

If anyone in the galaxy was worth trying for, it was her. He might doubt any number of other things, but he didn’t doubt that.

After another long moment, he pulled away, but only to move to the other side of the bed. He curled up on top of the covers; she stayed beneath. They faced each other, though, and when he extended his hand, she met him halfway, weaving her fingers together with his. His thumb stroked the back of her hand like a meditation.

“Sleep well,” she whispered, but he was already halfway dreaming and could not even find voice to wish her the same.


	36. Under Seals Broken

As had become her habit in the past several days, Solana, balancing Shepard’s breakfast on a tray in her lap, used her elbow to let herself into the cabin. This time, however, instead of finding the commander already up and either slaving over the book or attempting a course of absolutely-not-doctor-approved physical therapy (that mostly seemed to entail falling from the bed and pulling herself back up again), she found both the cabin’s principal occupants still asleep and facing each other, hands entwined in the swath of empty space between them. 

Her breath caught, and her mandibles flared in surprise not only because the arrangement seemed a vast leap from where she’d left her brother and Shepard only the day before, but because Garrus was, in fact, _asleep_. She recognized his snores, exaggerated by the strange way he had to contort himself to lie comfortably on the human bed. Before Solana could retreat as swiftly as she’d entered, Shepard turned her head slightly and opened her eyes. Very slowly, with her free hand, she held a finger to her lips. Her expression wasn’t sleepy, though it seemed a little regretful; Solana felt certain Shepard had been awake and just as relieved Garrus was sleeping. Though it was too soft to hear, a sigh lifted a strand of Shepard’s hair, and a moment later Garrus stirred.

Solana averted her eyes, feeling oddly voyeuristic though all her brother and Shepard were doing was looking at each other.

“We have company,” Shepard murmured. “Looks like it’s breakfast for me but none for you. I think your sister likes me better than you.”

“Mmm. She probably has a dextro ration bar I can pilfer.”

“She’ll definitely like me better if you _steal_ her breakfast.”

He chuckled, low and still pleasantly groggy. It spoke of a certain kind of trust that he wasn’t already alert and ready for a fight. “I think I’ll go make sure nothing exploded in the drive core overnight and find my own breakfast along the way.”

It was just as well neither of them were looking at her, because shock recognizable even to human eyes slipped across her features. Solana wondered how much Shepard truly understood about reading the intricacies of turian subvocals. Something, she hoped. If anyone deserved to hear how clearly her brother’s voice had shifted away from distrust and toward belief—hope, even—it was Shepard. She heard the shift of bodies rising, skin and plates against fabric, Garrus’ sigh as he stretched and yawned, and Shepard’s soft laugh as that yawn turned into a groan.

Solana glanced at them just long enough to see the brief brush of fingers, Shepard’s to Garrus’ scarred cheek, his to push a lock of her hair behind one ear. The intimacy of it was palpable, and for a moment—just a heartbeat—Solana let herself feel a pang of envy. The whole galaxy had been flipped upside down and backwards since the last time anyone touched her so tenderly and on dark days, on _stare at the alcohol all you want but don’t you dare fall face-first into it, Sol_ days, she feared those tender touches were gone forever, buried in the rubble of what once had been Cipritine.

No more words were exchanged; perhaps they didn’t need them. Perhaps they didn’t want an audience. Making herself as inconspicuous as she could, she rolled herself carefully down the makeshift ramp to the lower part of the room and settled the tray on the end of the bed. Only a little of Shepard’s drink had spilled; everything else was just as pristine as it had been when the human down in the mess hall gave it to her. Shepard began to wriggle her way toward the tray, but Garrus plucked up the mug and handed it to her. She sighed happily, raising the cup to her nose. Shepard was too busy inhaling to notice the fond glance Garrus sent her way.

On his way to the door, he rested a hand briefly on Solana’s shoulder. “Take it from an old pro, Sol: don’t come between her and her coffee. Three more sips and she’s yours, but before that you’re taking your life in your hands.”

“Jealousy is so unbecoming, Garrus,” Shepard retorted, but she closed her eyes as she swallowed the first mouthful. If bliss had an expression, Shepard’s was it.

“Right,” Garrus drawled, but said it with a smile. A little strained, still, perhaps, but much less so than the day before. Solana swallowed her intrusive curiosity—what had been said? What had been done?—and satisfied herself with a wave as her brother turned to leave.

After Garrus had gone, Solana watched Shepard enjoy her drink for several more sips before speaking. “So, uh,” she began, hesitating and then feeling even sillier for the hesitation. “Sleeping is good.”

This time, instead of blissfully swallowing, Shepard inhaled a mouthful of her coffee and promptly began choking on it. Before Solana could worry too much, the choking became a chuckle. Shepard’s eyes were leaking; as far as Solana understood, that was _not_ a good sign in humans. Shepard waved away Solana’s concern, running her free hand over her cheeks to catch the moisture. “Yeah,” she said, “sleeping is good. Some people, as I understand, weren’t doing very much of it.”

“Some people like to think the rules don’t apply to them. Including the ones that dictate necessary sleep requirements.”

“He—” Shepard stopped, shaking her head. In that mercurial human way, her expression changed rapidly, signifying several shifts of emotion more quickly than Solana could keep up. Most of them, she thought, did not look particularly pleasant, and Shepard’s voice, when she spoke again, was sad. “He has trouble sleeping when he thinks he’s about to get shot in the back. Doubly so when he’s fearing friendly fire.” Settling her mug on the bedside table, Shepard replaced it with _Through the Looking Glass_. She lifted her eyes, and Solana thought it odd to see they were still damp. “I’m glad he slept. He needed it. But it didn’t fix everything. It’s not that easy.”

“A step forward’s better than a step back,” Solana insisted, wheeling herself to Shepard’s side.

Shepard snorted lightly. On Solana’s confused look, she waved her hand to include both their malfunctioning sets of legs and said, “Stepping anywhere’s really beyond both of us at this point, isn’t it?”

“Funny.”

Shepard smiled, and Solana knew the subject had been deliberately changed, not to be revisited. For now. Solana reached for the papers she’d been working on the day before. Shepard opened the book to the beginning for the thousandth time. They worked to the faint beat of club music in the background, and Solana found herself strangely cheered every time she looked up and saw the lasting indentation her brother’s head had left in the pillow next to Shepard’s.

#

“What if we’ve been thinking about this the wrong way?” Shepard asked several hours later, lifting the increasingly-ragged book and waving it in a vague circle.

“Obviously we’ve been thinking about it the wrong way,” Solana replied mildly. “Or we’d have figured it out by now.”

She was evidently well-accustomed to impertinent replies, because Shepard only shook her head and laughed, pushing her hair back from her forehead. “Save me from smart-ass Vakarians.”

Solana’s mandibles fluttered. “Ah. Sorry.”

Shepard’s smile pulled one corner of her mouth higher than the other; Solana was pretty sure it was how humans distinguished wry from merely amused. “Oh, I wouldn’t feel like myself without a Vakarian quipping sarcastic remarks at every possible turn.” Something about the words stole the smile, though, and by the time Shepard had finished speaking, her voice no longer sounded light, and her shoulders were slumped. The grief lasted only a moment. Before Solana could think of an appropriate reply, Shepard had straightened and carefully smoothed her face.

“Are we over-thinking or under-thinking?” Solana asked. “What part’s wrong?”

Shepard’s relief at the change of subject was tangible, and she shuffled through the pieces of paper onto which she’d painstakingly transcribed every symbol both human and turian they’d been able to find. “Over, I think. It’s the mirror. I’ve been fixated on using a physical mirror somehow, but I’m starting to wonder if…. How many letters in the turian alphabet?”

“Thirty-four.”

“Nice and even. English has twenty-six. So, I’m wondering… what if we flip the alphabet? Make a simple code where the first letter is equal to the last letter and backward all the way to the middle?”

“And then try to make words with the new alphabet?” Solana scratched the side of her neck and rolled her shoulders. “That seems simple. But elegant.”

Shepard sighed. “EDI would’ve thought of it in something like 0.6 seconds. I keep worrying that whomever sent the message might’ve thought EDI’s was the mind figuring it out. I’m afraid the rest of us just don’t compare.”

“Codes existed before computers were around to do the heavy lifting,” Solana replied with more optimism than she felt. 

“She wasn’t just—fine. Let’s give it a try.”

Like all their other attempts, however, this one did not yield immediate results. “Anything?” Shepard asked, a touch of desperation in her tone.

“Not unless these are words in a dialect I’ve never heard of.”

Shepard scowled at the book as though anger might make it give up its secrets. “It would be something in Garrus’ dialect. They left it for Archangel.”

“Did they know Archangel was Garrus Vakarian, though?”

“Yes,” Shepard insisted. Solana wasn’t sure where the certainty came from, but decided pursuing an argument wasn’t worth the trouble. She glowered down at the book and the fan of papers all around her stretched-out legs.

And then she said, “Oh,” at the same time Solana said, “Wait.”

“Now backwards,” Solana said. “If we flip the letters in that simple code and _then_ read the words backwards…”

“‘If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’” Shepard whispered. Lifting her stylus, she scribbled several notes. Her inhale was nearly a gasp, and when she’d finished writing she sat so still for a moment that Solana was half-afraid she was having some kind of terrible relapse.

“Aren’t you clever,” Shepard breathed, staring down at the piece of paper in her hands as though she expected it to explode at any moment. Her fingers tightened, making the paper creak, and all the color drained from her face.

Already wondering how fast Dr. Chakwas could convince the elevator to move in an emergency, Solana reached out and tentatively settled the pad of one finger on the back of Shepard’s trembling hand.

As if woken from this the way a dreamer might jerk awake from a nightmare, Shepard crumpled the paper violently in one hand even as she said, “EDI, can you—shit. Solana, get your brother on your comm. Now.”

Solana had the strangest urge to snap to attention, or reply with a deferential _yes, ma’am!_ , though it had been many years since her last military posting, and she’d certainly never saluted a human. She routed the call to Garrus’ private frequency through the interface of her omni-tool so Shepard could both speak to him and hear his response. 

Before Garrus could say more than, “Sol, what—?” Shepard barked, “Garrus? It’s me. And I’m about done with this no-tech vacation.” Solana blinked, a little shiver running down her spine. All trace of the laughing woman vanished and was replaced in a heartbeat—in a single word—by the serious soldier Solana recognized from the wartime vids as _Commander Shepard_ , _Savior of the Galaxy, No That’s Not An Exaggeration._ “Joker needs to set a course for Earth. Something tells me Kaidan’s return might be… hampered.”

Garrus didn’t argue. He said only, “All right. You want to give me a reason?”

“I’ll give you several, but not over an unsecured line.”

“On my way.”

“Bring Brooks.”

The pause was so long and so startled, Solana almost thought her brother was already gone and hadn’t heard. Then, subharmonics thrumming with distress, he said, “Why, Shepard?”

“Because blown-out knee or not, she’s had enough beauty sleep. Because she knows more than she lets on.”

“You got all this from that book?”

“I got all this from one word.”

Garrus growled a particularly vile turian expletive and the following silence was one of cut communications and not confusion. As her omni-tool went dark, Solana asked, “What is it? _Who_ is it?”

“Ghosts,” Shepard spat, and even subvocals couldn’t have made the vitriol any clearer. Her hands clenched and flattened, pressing into the bed as though she was thinking about trying to get up out of it, healing bones be damned. Solana had never been more certain that, whatever pieces Shepard had just put together, no matter how injured she still was, the very last place she wanted to stand was between the commander and whomever’d so utterly pissed her off. 

“Ghosts,” Shepard repeated, her tone a dangerous promise. “Who should have known to stay dead, and who never, ever should have tried to use my own people against me.”


	37. Fear Death by Water

When Garrus entered the cabin not fifteen minutes after Shepard’s terse call, the difference in mood was palpable. Gone was the almost-normal, almost-tender, almost- _right_ feel of only a few hours earlier, replaced by tension so heavy it made it hard to breathe. Even the fish seemed to be moving slower. The last time he’d seen Solana’s expression so unnerved, she’d been fresh from a paternal discussion about the many levels of disappointment it was possible for a frustrated father to feel.

In the years he’d known her, Garrus had witnessed a vast range of Shepard’s emotions, and though anger was rare, he was nonetheless familiar with it. Hell, she’d been angry with him almost the first time they met, when he shot the man holding Dr. Michel without considering the risk to the hostage. That, however, fell closer to annoyance on the Shepard-fury spectrum. Her fuse was an exceptionally long one, and he didn’t even need the six fingers of both hands to count how many times he’d seen her truly infuriated since. This, he suspected, was going to rate, and rate high. He could practically hear the tick of the timer counting down, the hiss of the slow-burning wire leading to a truly cataclysmic pile of explosives.

This wasn’t the loud, frustrated, expletive-heavy rage he’d seen after Han’Garrel’s misstep, though. This wasn’t the frustration Udina had often stirred in her. This was the cold anger he’d seen after Aratoht, when she was already calculating exactly how best to use herself as a living weapon, and Spirits help anyone stupid enough to stand in her way. Even him. Well-timed quips were a potent weapon against her heated rage, but nothing—certainly nothing he’d ever learned—could stop the timer once the cold had been activated. It didn’t matter that she was still wearing her fluffy hooded sweatshirt and not a uniform or her hardsuit or the I-mean-business dress blues. It didn’t matter that she’d given him command and insisted she’d take a back seat. It didn’t even matter that she was completely unarmed. This Shepard, immovable and certain in her righteous fury, was the one that led people to speak of Spectres in hushed and terrified whispers. And for damned good reason.

“Where’s Brooks?” she demanded. Her expression gave him nothing. Her voice only confirmed how infuriated she was: somewhere above the anger of being shot at by supposed allies, but below the rage of finding out the asari had held back vital information until most of the galaxy was already in flames. For now, anyway. 

Garrus crossed the room and stood at the end of the bed, linking his hands loosely behind his back and adopting an easy sort of parade rest, as if she were behind a desk and not propped up against a pile of pillows, respectful without being subordinate. “Doc wanted to wake her up slowly. And I didn’t want to walk into this ambush blind. What the hell, Shepard?”

Beside Shepard, Solana flinched, her mandibles flicking into a subtle gesture of dismay. Shepard didn’t so much as blink at his impertinence; this, at least, was familiar ground. It was a dance he knew exceptionally well, the give and take, the lead and follow, sometimes one and sometimes the other as the situation dictated. This was Commander Shepard and Advisor Vakarian. This was conversations about ruthless calculus and the difference between turian and human ideas of acceptable loss, no holds barred. His sister, even at her most impudent, was too good a turian to dream of speaking to a superior so baldly. And right now Shepard’s entire being practically oozed _superior_ in a way that had nothing whatsoever to do with rank.

“Miranda left the book,” Shepard said. “Honestly? I think it’s a warning that nothing’s as it seems.”

“I could have told you that weeks ago.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when Liara went looking for Miranda, she found Brooks instead.”

“And that’s the word you found? Miranda?”

“Actually,” Shepard said, “it was ‘Miri.’”

Garrus’ mandibles fluttered in confusion. “I’m gonna need more than that.”

Shepard lips compressed. “It’s the nickname her sister uses. Which means either she was trying to keep her own name out of it, but leaving enough of a clue for me to figure out her identity, or it means she cooperated because someone was holding Oriana for Miranda’s good behavior. Or both.”

“You mean so she’d betray you.”

Shepard shook her head faintly. “I don’t begrudge her wanting to keep her family safe. God knows there’re few enough families left in the galaxy.” Pausing, she glanced down at the book beside her. “I’m not sure betrayal was in the cards, in any case. She left me _this book_. A book about things not being as they seem. A book about mirror images. A book for children, but so much more than that.”

Solana finally found voice enough to say, “You quoted from it earlier. Was it… was the quote important?” 

“‘If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’ It was something she marked. Page and sentence, but she wrote the numbers out instead of using the symbols. I’m pretty sure there are more. And now that her code’s broken, I’m sure she left similar messages in the turian.”

“You think _Miranda_ wrote in turian?”

Shepard snorted a mirthless laugh. “You don’t think Miranda Lawson was schooled in every major alien language alongside a dozen of the more prominent extant human ones? Imagine the incomparable superiority if you can eschew the translator and speak in a being’s home tongue. Besides, she had to have a backup in place, in case I wasn’t cognizant enough to play translator on my own.” Shaking her head, Shepard tapped a fingertip against the glossy cover. “If she found this book, she could have found others, is what I’m saying. So I’m certain she chose this one on purpose.”

“Who would use her, then? Who would hold her sister hostage? Why… why would she do what she did? To you?”

Shepard steepled her fingers and stared at him for several long moments before speaking. “What _did_ she do, though? Think about it. I was broken when you found me, but I… I got better. Mostly. And this is _Miranda_. If she figured out how to bring me back from the dead, I’m pretty sure she could wrangle up a way to fake the broken Shepard they wanted.”

“But who’s they?” Solana asked. “And why did they want you broken in the first place?”

“No idea,” Shepard admitted. “But I’m hoping Brooks might prove a window.”

Garrus sighed. “So you think Cerberus is involved somehow.”

“I always think Cerberus is involved somehow. When hasn’t Cerberus been involved? But I think Solana’s asked the real question: _why?_ If you’d taken me back to Earth straight away I might’ve been an object for pity, but I can’t see how pity for the once-great Commander Shepard serves any purpose of Cerberus’.” She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Which brings us back to Brooks again. You ever wonder why the clone—the other clone—Brooks’ clone—chose such a strange path? The tactics were so skewed. The purpose was so muddy. Stealing the _Normandy_ was one thing, but what on earth did she intend to _do_ with it after?” The coldness seeped back into her voice. “I don’t like muddy conspiracies, Garrus. They smack of secrets.”

“And you hate secrets.”

“I despise secrets.”

As if cued, the door chime sounded. Shepard lifted her gaze to his, and though her voice, when she spoke, was steady, he saw the silent plea in her eyes. “Brooks is old business. I wonder if you’d mind me taking point on this.”

He inclined his head. “Whatever you need, Shepard.”

The hint of a smile she gave him held at least the memory of warmth. “Just like old times?”

“And right there behind you into hell.”

Solana grimaced, and Shepard said, “Figuratively, we hope.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, like an actor preparing to set foot on stage. “Come in,” she called out, all icy rage once more.

To the doctor’s credit, Brooks didn’t look at all groggy as Chakwas and Samara led her in. Garrus grabbed the desk chair and settled it at the end of the bed, setting Shepard up as interrogator. Halfway through a sneer, Brooks met Shepard’s eyes and the expression froze and cracked, leaving only disquiet in its place.

“That will be all,” Shepard said. “Dr. Chakwas, Samara, could I ask you to wait outside?”

“Is that wise, Commander?” Samara asked.

“I’d guess Garrus is a potent enough threat to keep her in line for now. If she values her other knee.”

That faint disquiet broke even further, letting true distress leak out. Garrus even believed it was honest, for a change. “I’d rather the Justicar—”

“And I’d rather she didn’t,” interrupted Shepard. “In this room, on this ship, I’m afraid my wishes rather supersede yours. Samara. Karin.”

Samara’s expression remained serene as ever, but Chakwas couldn’t quite hide her uneasiness. Shepard offered no other reassurances. She didn’t even smile. She merely turned a sharp gaze on the former Cerberus operative and stared, unblinking, until the cabin door closed, leaving the four of them alone under the blurry stars.

“So, Maya,” Shepard began, the conversational tone entirely feigned, “I believe it’s time we had a history lesson. How was your history? Passable at least, I suppose. No one’s accusing you of failing to be clever.” 

Shepard folded her hands in her lap. “The mythical Cerberus had three heads. Cerberus might have started as one man’s crusade, one man’s fight against his race being overwhelmed by older, more established aliens who had no real reason to care what became of Earth or her denizens. Hell, I even believe he had humanity’s best interests at heart, in the very beginning. But you don’t guard the gate to hell without some of the dark leaking into your pores.” 

Brooks glanced up at Garrus, and inched away, trying to move the chair. He settled a hand on the back of it to keep her in place. Shepard continued in the same wandering storyteller’s manner, indifferent to Brooks’ little struggle. “Now, Maya, here’s where you can be of some help. I’m starting to think maybe the terrorist organization’s structure ended up similar to the mythological dog’s. The Illusive Man was the biggest head, the centermost head. The mouthpiece. The one everyone looked at. But a man like that has deputies, other heads doing other work and telling other tales. More than that? I think a man who walked the road he walked had nervous friends packing their secret bags and waiting for the right moment to cut and run. Like you, right, Maya? Did you leave before or after you realized the kind of abominations he was creating with Reaper tech?” 

She waved one hand dismissively, before returning it to her lap. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that I need to know about the other two heads. Who were they? What were they doing? I imagine one might even have been Henry Lawson, or someone of his ilk. Research and development. But who was the third? Where does respectability come in? I know the Illusive Man must’ve been working toward it. And I know you’re just the conniving creature to have that information, aren’t you?”

“I don’t. I left.”

Shepard’s eyes narrowed over a smile gone even colder. “Try again. Who was the political voice waiting in the wings? Was Cerberus nurturing political alliances? Were they trying to make a move against the Alliance? Or infiltrate it?”

“How should I know? I… I was only R&D, you know. Tech and biology.”

“Psychology?”

“Something of a forte.” As if hearing the echo of her own arrogance and fearing what disaster it might spell for her other knee, Brooks added, “We all have our strengths, after all. Little point denying them.”

“Why bother with the clone, then, if you didn’t want to dip your toes in politics? Commander Shepard’s a pretty recognizable figure, I hear. Someone only interested in R&D shouldn’t have wanted to get within a hundred feet of someone—something—so visible.”

Brooks gripped the edge of the chair’s seat, holding her shoulders stiff. “She asked a question,” Garrus rumbled, and Brooks jumped, as though she’d forgotten he was there. Brooks’ mouth opened and worked silently, but nothing emerged.

“Silence isn’t a good tactic,” Shepard said. “And neither is making me angrier than I already am. I’d start explaining myself, Maya, if I were you.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you. Go ahead. Have your pet turian take another shot at me. At least the doctor’s drugs are good.”

The smile that pulled at Shepard’s lips was icy, her gaze so cool even the green seemed to have faded, leaving only Noveria-grey storminess behind. “What do you know about Proteus?”

Brooks blinked, obviously having expected some other question. Garrus couldn’t say he blamed her; he’d never heard Shepard mention it before. Shepard didn’t wait for a response before continuing, “Really? And you such a connoisseur of my service history. 2180? Solo infiltration mission? Suspected terrorist cell setting up camp in the brand new baby human colony? Ringing bells yet?”

Brooks flushed and lifted her chin, almost defiant.

“I have three medals from that mission,” Shepard continued, mild only if one ignored the way her eyes narrowed further, and the jumping muscle in her jaw. “Would’ve been four, but they don’t hand out the Star of Terra for killing people in their sleep, no matter how necessary the deaths. Still, it was quite the commendation. That Shepard, they said. Give her motivation enough and damn, she’ll do anything.”

“There is absolutely no record of Proteus in your file. And I have been privy to even your sealed Spectre dossier, I’ll have you recall.”

The smile widened, slipping sideways into dangerous. Solana looked like she was calculating blast radius and not much liking her chances of survival. Garrus could’ve told her she was fine—Shepard didn’t believe in collateral damage—but figured her visible anxiety only added a layer of verisimilitude she could never have carried if she were pretending. “You’ll have me recall?” Shepard scoffed. “You’ll have _me_ recall? Oh, Maya. You don’t know the first fucking _thing_ about me. Proteus was expunged. So were two dozen other solo missions. Any commendations and medals I earned solo were attached to less politically… nebulous missions.”

“The military doesn’t—”

“The military,” Shepard snapped, so sharp Garrus half expected blood to bead up where it cut, “does what it needs to do. Especially with covert special operatives. Sometimes that means they erase a paper trail, to keep those papers from people like you. Sometimes it means a paper trail never existed at all. You know what Admiral Hackett did after reading my report on Aratoht? He _handed it back_. Of course I did the only thing I could. Of course he couldn’t publicly condone it.” Shepard lifted a hand and tapped once at the embroidered white N7 on her breast. “You think you understand this, right? What it signifies? What it means?”

“Of course I—”

“No,” Shepard said. “You’re really very clever, Brooks. I give you that much, and I was taken in by you once. The sooner you understand it’s not going to happen again, the sooner this conversation is over, and you’re released back to Samara’s care. Who were you working for, when you stole the clone?”

“She came willingly enough.”

“Garrus,” Shepard said, her inflection never changing, her gaze on Brooks unwavering, “dislocate her shoulder.”

“What?” Brooks yelped, jerking away, though she was too hobbled to get far. “That’s not—you don’t—”

He reached for the shaking woman, but Shepard held up a quelling hand. “I don’t what?” Each word was a bullet, aimed to kill. Shepard always was deadly with someone in her sights, and Brooks had nowhere to hide, no cover to dive behind. “Hurt people? Kill people?”

“Use torture,” Brooks gasped, wide-eyed. “You have—you have a code. It’s right there in, in all your files.”

“The ones you’ve seen.”

“I’ve seen them all!”

The predatory gleam in Shepard’s eyes was something wholly unfamiliar, even to Garrus, and yet he found himself fascinated instead of perturbed by it. “I guarantee you haven’t. Didn’t I just give you a history lesson, Maya? Weren’t you paying attention?” Shepard leaned forward. “I think you’re suffering under a kind of misapprehension. It’s not your fault. They love to talk about Elysium, after all. Less so Proteus or Sirona or the McCrikken drop. I can shoot a man between the eyes without anyone ever having known I was there. If you think causing a little pain is beneath me, I’m afraid you are sorely mistaken.”

“No,” Brooks insisted. “No. Archangel—Vakarian—he’s the one with the—he’s the one who—you don’t. You’re a girl scout. You’re all words. D-diplomacy. You build bridges, not burn them. It was—you have no idea how hard I had to impress that upon the clone. She wanted to destroy. She wanted to burn. And I wanted her to be _you_. With _words._ ”

Shepard lifted a disdainful brow. “Is that what you think is going on here? You think I’m the good cop and he’s the bad? You think it was weakness or indecision on my part that saved your life the last time around? Do you think you can fuck with me and get away with it, Maya Brooks?” Shepard gave him a nod. “Garrus? Shoulder. Keep her conscious, please.”

He settled a heavy hand on Brooks’ shoulder and she wheezed a terrified, “Wait. _Wait._ ”

“For what? For you to think up a suitable story? I think you’re the kind who tells the truth when she’s in pain. Why train the clone? What was she for? Who was angry when your mission failed?” 

Shepard nodded at him again, and he squeezed—not hard enough to actually cause damage and not the right torque to dislocate, but enough to cause a deceptive kind of pain. “I worked alone!” Brooks cried. “I just wanted… I wanted… revenge? I wanted revenge!”

“Maya,” Shepard said, each word clipped and enunciated with forbidding clarity, “I do not believe you.” She sighed a weary sigh. “And I’m starting to think pain isn’t enough of a motivator. I took a man’s fingers on Proteus, you know. He was tough. He didn’t crack until the ring finger on his second hand, and by then it seemed important to take the whole set. For symmetry, if nothing else. I like symmetry. He did talk though, in the end. I think I knew the name of every school teacher he’d ever had and every woman—and man—he’d ever thought inappropriate thoughts about by the time we were done. Perhaps you’ll be more willing to cooperate if I start having your fingers thrown to my fish. The eel looks hungry.”

A swift glance at his visor’s readouts told him Brooks’ vitals were off the chart. There was no faking that kind of heart rate. “This is insane. You’re insane!”

“A fact you really ought to have known, if psychology were quite the forte you thought it was.” Shepard stroked the N7 on her breast again, leisurely, like it was a pet. “This? This means I’m unpredictable, Maya. It means I get the job done no matter the cost. Ask the batarians. Ask the Reapers. Ask Garrus; he knows. Hell, ask your dead fucking clone.” She waved toward the desk. “There’s a ceremonial knife in the bottom drawer. It’s dull, but it’ll do well enough on fingers, I think. And the added pain can only loosen a reluctant tongue.”

“Spirits,” Solana whispered, before covering her mouth with her hands. Shepard didn’t look at her. 

Brooks, wild-eyed, did. Gaze fixed desperately on Solana, she said, “You—you’re—you can’t let them do this.”

“Talk,” Solana pleaded, a keening note of horror in her subharmonics, loud and obvious enough even for a human to hear. “The people you work for aren’t here now. Spirits, _talk._ ”

It was very convincing. Garrus wondered, a little, if it hadn’t been part of Shepard’s plan all along, if Solana’s visible disgust wasn’t the reason she hadn’t been banished to the corridor with the others.

Brooks opened her mouth. Closed it again. Turned an extremely sickly shade, and whispered, “They’ll kill me if they find out I talked.”

“I’ll kill you now if you don’t, Maya. Or I’ll let Garrus do it. He didn’t want to save you in the first place, and you’ve really managed to piss him off. He is… alarmingly creative about enacting poetic justice on an enemy. I almost find myself curious what he might do to you, given free rein.”

Brooks bowed her head. Her heart still raced, and he was close enough to hear the rapid, insufficient breaths wracking her. “T-terra Firma approached Cerberus. With all the cozying up to the Council you’d done, they were… they weren’t in good graces. They had some clout, though, and their people had money. With the Lazarus Project and all the… all the Reaper tech projects… the Illusive Man was hemorrhaging funds. He needed money. They needed a figurehead.”

“The clone?”

“If Commander Shepard stood with Terra Firma, it would mean something. And they knew Cerberus had… had some kind of relationship with you. They wanted to capitalize on it. But they were too late, of course. You’d already flipped your middle finger at the Illusive Man and cut the apron strings.”

“Yes, they tried to prevail upon me once. I didn’t go for it then. I sure as hell don’t agree with it now.” Shepard shrugged. “If the clone had succeeded in her coup, I’d never have been able to stop the Reapers. You’d all be paste. It was a short-sighted plan. I will never understand why every damned race in the galaxy decided the invasion of giant sentient ships heralded the appropriate time to start infighting politically.”

Brooks gathered herself, telegraphing her defensiveness. Before she could launch into it, Garrus squeezed her shoulder again until she cried out again. “It’s why—oh, God, _stop_ —it’s why we waited so long to strike. My—our—we knew the Crucible was all but finished. You’d already gathered all your allies. We didn’t—agh—we didn’t think it would so spectacularly come down to you in the end. And the clone could’ve done almost everything you did. She was really—aghhh, _fuck_ —she was very clever. You brought out the worst in her.”

Shepard smiled her new feral smile again. “Yes, well. I’m sure she’s not the first to think so. Did your people contact you again when Liara found you? What were you meant to do here, with me?”

“I didn’t _do_ anything to you. Look, I’ve done any number of other things, certainly, but I swear I—everything that happened to you was outside of my purview. I thought—I thought if I could get you to them, they might forgive me the colossal clusterfuck of the last mission. I thought—I thought perhaps I could begin to sway that broken version of you the way I swayed the broken version of her.”

“Sweet-talking and lies?” The smile vanished. “I don’t like you very much at all, Maya Brooks. I want names. Connections. I want you to allow Samara to sift through your mind. Or I think I’d like to let Garrus fulfill his creative potential. Your call. No middle ground. No compromises.”

Once more Garrus closed his hand around her already-bruised shoulder. A part of him had to respect that she was still fighting it, fighting him—fighting them. The other part wanted Shepard to live up to her end of the bargain.

“The asari,” Brooks finally sobbed. “Give me to the fucking asari, oh my God.”

“Get her out of my sight.” Shepard cleared her throat meaningfully. “I will kill you if you’ve lied to me, Brooks. Think about your story. If there’s anything you want to amend _before_ Samara goes looking, you may find me willing to be as merciful again as I was before. Perhaps.”

Garrus escorted her to the door himself, helping her limp along on her still-healing leg. She didn’t look at him, and neither the color nor the smirk had returned to her face. If she was faking her brokenness, she was doing an astonishingly good job. Fearing she might try to take herself out of the picture before her unwilling betrayal could be completed, he warned Samara to keep a constant watch on her, and then he returned to Shepard’s bedside. Solana had retreated to the other side of the room, but watched them with barely disguised alarm.

Shepard, in the meantime, had collapsed back against the pillows, the color once again rising in her cheeks, her cold mask fallen off to reveal the exhaustion beneath.

Garrus perched next to her, reaching out to touch the healing burn-scars on her cheek. He had no doubt they, too, would vanish in time, like all the rest. Poor Shepard. Constantly remade, without even the proof of suffering to serve as the badge of honor it was. “That didn’t happen, did it? Proteus? Uh. Cutting off a man’s fingers?”

She smiled wearily, but at least it was warm. “Was it convincing?”

“Frighteningly so.”

“I saw it in a vid, once, the thing with the knife. The threat is enough. Most people are too weak to require the follow-through.” She sighed, closing her eyes. “I thought she was going to call my bluff.”

“She might’ve, still. She’s a good liar.”

Shepard nodded, “We’ll see what Samara says.” She cracked one eye and smirked up at him. “But you and I both know I play a mean hand of Skyllian Five.”

“I am _never_ playing cards with you,” Solana muttered, almost to herself. At least she no longer sounded mortified. Or afraid for her own life. “Never. Ever.”

“And why,” Garrus asked, twining a loose lock of her hair around one of his fingers, “are we in such a desperate hurry to get back to Earth?”

“Because,” Shepard groaned miserably, “that’s where all the damned politics are.”


	38. Whisper Music

Having always been careful not to come near enough to cross it, Shepard had rather wondered where Samara, and her Code, drew the line. The day after her altercation with Brooks, she discovered it.

Whomever she expected on the other side of the cabin door—not Garrus, since he was down in engineering with Tali, and not Solana, as she was slated to have her newly-grown leg grafted in the afternoon—it was not Samara. It took Shepard a moment too long to regain her composure having been thus surprised, and Samara, lingering in the doorway, looked as uneasy as Shepard had ever seen her. 

With Kaidan gone, Samara explained, the most level-headed of the other biotics wasn’t present to play jailer to Brooks, and she didn’t trust either Jack or Javik to hold their tempers long. “Not,” she insisted, “that Maya appears willing to give more trouble, at present.”

“Or so she wants us to think. I’ll feel better when you’ve corroborated her story.”

“In good conscience, and according to the Code, I cannot, Shepard,” Samara said, her voice pitched low even though they had no audience. Shepard didn’t think she was imagining the faint edge of disapproval. “Melding is not a tool of interrogation. It is not a weapon. And to use it against an unwilling participant is an abhorrent abuse of power.”

“I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important,” Shepard insisted, tapping her fingers in a complicated pattern against the cover of the book in her lap. “You know me well enough for that.”

“I know you well enough to be surprised you would ask at all.” The disapproval graduated from faint to definite, and Shepard steeled herself against the rising cringe. Samara’s expression did not change. She did not scowl or sneer or even frown the way another might, but the unhappiness was palpable nonetheless. 

Shepard stopped her tapping and held her hands wide, palms up. “What would you have me do? This woman is an enemy. More than that, she’s an enemy with unclear motives and mysterious connections and we have been half a dozen steps behind her the whole time. Merely holding her isn’t enough. I have to bring the fight to those who would use her, and those like her.”

“And if you asked me to fight her, I would do so without question. If you asked me to punish her for the crimes she is known to have committed, I would not hesitate.”

“I don’t get it,” Shepard said, not quite able to buff the edge of frustration from her tone. “You let Garrus walk in and blow the woman’s knee to pulp, but _this_ is pushing too far?”

“You push me as well as her, Shepard, and I am no enemy to you or yours.”

Shepard frowned. “She is _hiding_ something. She’s been hiding something from me since before we met. You have the ability to find those things out. I know you do. Liara got a play-by-play of the Prothean beacon when she went poking around in my head.”

“This is not the same. I do not deny she may be holding back information. I fear you ask me to abuse this most intimate of acts to satisfy injured pride. You dislike that she successfully deceived you before. I understand. And yet this thing you ask—”

Shepard stiffened, already feeling the urge to defend herself, her motives. A prickle of damning doubt gave her pause. “And the lives that hang in the balance? The innocents she’d see dead without a second thought? Those already lost to her schemes? Do they not deserve justice?”

Samara inclined her head.

“She had a choice,” Shepard insisted. “Your way or Garrus’.”

“A choice made under duress is not a choice.”

“Morality lessons,” Shepard muttered. “Fantastic. Just what I need.”

“So it would appear,” Samara returned, with as sharp an edge to her voice as Shepard had ever heard. “I will interrogate her, if you wish it. But I will not invade her mind in the manner you desire. Not even for you, Shepard.”

“She’ll lie to you.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I was not at your side during the altercation on the Citadel, and she has not yet been able to lie convincingly to me.”

Shepard lifted her eyes to meet Samara’s unflinching gaze. After a moment or two, she scrubbed both hands through her hair and shook her head. “Forgive me. I should have consulted you first. I didn’t—I didn’t consider it from your perspective.”

“I know,” Samara said. “Or you would not have placed me in this position.”

The words stung. More so when Samara left and Shepard realized the Justicar was right. She’d been applying a sort of by-any-means-necessary logic without once considering the pressure it would put on Samara or her Code. She’d been so wrapped up in her little game, playing her little role, and so pleased at seeing the tables turned on Brooks for a change, she’d never thought about the greater consequences. Her gut twisted unpleasantly.

It wasn’t like her. Simple slip, or damning proof she wasn’t actually who she thought she was, who she wanted to be? When Garrus returned several hours later, she was still fretting about it.

“Shepard?” he asked, just quietly enough for her to know how upset she must look to him.

“I can’t sink to her level,” Shepard replied, the tinge of mania audible even to herself, “I can’t let myself become like her.”

“Like…?”

“Brooks,” she said. Snapped, really, by the way his mandibles flared. She waved a placating hand. “It’s one thing to pretend. It’s another to become. I—can’t. I can’t _become_. Or she wins.”

His mandibles fluttered again, less startled and more confused. Funny, how easy it was for her to tell the difference. That, at least, was familiar. That, at least, was _her_. “I think I’m missing something here.”

Shepard hunched over, curling into herself and taking a deep breath. Steady. Steady. A moment later, she felt the shift of the mattress as he sat next to her. He settled his palm between her shoulder blades, the weight just heavy enough to be reassuring, but not overbearing. Not presuming. She had no doubt that if she twitched away from him, he’d take that hand away just as swiftly. She didn’t twitch away. 

“Now I know I’m missing something,” he added, and though he was trying to sound amused, she could sense the vague worry beneath it. “Want to fill me in?”

What she wanted was to lean against him, to feel the comforting warmth of his arm around her shoulder and her cheek pressed to his chest, but a hand against her back was better than him staring her down from the other side of the room. She drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, careful not to jostle Garrus’ hand. Her limbs didn’t feel quite normal yet, still weak and aching in ways she despised, but at least they moved when she told them to, and she’d worked herself up to the ability to stand for five minutes without toppling. With their limping drive core, Joker put them a week out of Earth orbit, and even that, he insisted with uncharacteristic pessimism, was a generous estimate. She looked at it as a mixed blessing. With all cylinders—or cybernetics—firing as they were, a week would buy her time she so desperately needed to literally get back on her feet again.

Shepard cleared her throat. “Samara held up a mirror. Didn’t much like what I saw.”

She didn’t think she was imagining the faint press of his fingertips against her spine, and she let herself curl ever so slightly into the touch. “I trust you mean that figuratively.”

She snorted, almost a laugh, and then sobered. “Can I ask you something?”

“I can already tell I’m going to regret saying yes, but go ahead.”

“When you told me the story about Dr. Saleon, you wanted to sacrifice all the hostages aboard his ship to take him out. And yet, by the time you established yourself on Omega, you weren’t willing to accept civilian casualties as a means to an end.”

She turned her head just in time to catch the wry shift of his mandibles. “You know there wasn’t actually a question in there, right? But I think I know what you’re getting at.” He sighed, his voice lowering slightly, his thumb running along the bony ridge of her shoulder blade, back and forth, back and forth. She wondered if it was deliberate, or only an old habit resurfacing. She was half-afraid of breathing too deeply, lest he catch himself in the act and stop. She didn’t want him to stop. “I’m… not you, couldn’t be you if I tried, but I meant what I said when I told you I’d learned a lot from you on the mission to stop Saren. I was… angry about a lot of things when I flung myself at Omega, but not so angry I couldn’t at least try to see things the way you’d have done.”

His hand left her back, but only to scratch at the side of his neck before returning again. “The thing is, before you I would only have seen the worst. The gangs. The _gangrene_. Omega had plenty of that. But underneath were the people whose lives were there. Normal people, just trying to eke out their living the only way they knew how. I remember thinking _that’s who the commander would see_. And once I started seeing them, I couldn’t stop. A month became six. Six became a team, and Archangel, and…” He shifted awkwardly, his subharmonics thrumming with the kind of nerves she hadn’t heard from him in months. “First… I suppose it was a tribute. Then it was a code. I guess the code was a kind of tribute, too, in its way. And, uh, I have _no_ idea how this is related to Samara or mirrors or Maya Brooks.”

She hugged her legs because she wanted to embrace him and couldn’t. “Samara reminded me that I have a code of my own, and I nearly broke it. Brooks uses people to get what she wants, heedless of the consequences. I don’t.”

“Samara refused to meld with her?”

“You knew?”

He shrugged. “I suspected. I’m pretty hazy on the details, but that kind of coercion seems like something she wouldn’t go for. To tell you the truth, I lumped it in with your philosophy of the threat being enough. At least for the time being, I think Brooks will wet herself if Samara so much as glows in her general direction, and no embracing of eternity actually need be involved.”

His words—and the fact that he used his exaggerated _by the Goddess_ Liara voice for the _no embracing of eternity_ bit—startled a laugh out of her. “Oh, Garrus. If I never hear those particular words again…”

He patted her back and she finally uncurled her spine, leaning against the wall beside him, their shoulders almost but not quite touching.

“How’s—sorry, I should’ve asked sooner. How’s your sister?”

“I think she’s probably almost as good as new, since the first thing she did when she came out of the anesthetic was yell at me for a while and explain at least eight ways I was screwing up my life.”

Shepard huffed another laugh, turning a smile his way. “I can give you a _dozen_ how you’re not.”

He didn’t smile. He didn’t even blink at her. She sat pinned beneath his sharp gaze for a heartbeat, two, three, and then he kissed her. It definitely wasn’t _her_ kissing _him_ ; she’d been so damned _careful_ to let him initiate their infrequent touches, their bandage-to-stop-the-bleeding moments, and much as she might’ve wanted to, she knew she hadn’t moved toward him. Not here. Not now. It was all him.

Maybe it wasn’t a vid-romantic dip on top of the Presidium, and maybe the angle was awkward because of their relative positions, but it was his hand slipping to her waist and his mouth on hers in the best approximation of a human kiss he could manage, which she’d somehow come to love more than she’d ever imagined she could love a kiss.

She gave herself over to it for a moment—a sweet, unrestrained moment lost in the heat and familiarity and _home_ of him—and then she pulled away, resting a hand against his scarred cheek and saying, “Are you—isn’t this—are you _sure_?”

He turned his head into that touch, and his breath as he whispered her name was warm against her palm. She closed her hand around that sound, holding it close, and then his mouth sought hers again, and that, she supposed, was eloquent answer enough. For here. For now.


	39. Sound of Water

_She knows she’s dreaming, but this is not her usual nightmare. It is an older one and a newer, trees and loneliness and feeling trapped, all bound together in pain and cold and dead things she wishes would stay buried._

_It is raining. It rains often here, the smell of damp rarely vanishing completely. On Mindoir, rain was always an event to rejoice; here she only resents it. In the trees, the sound of raindrops pattering against old leaves and moist earth is all she hears. When she strains for the whispers of ghosts, only the wind calls back. The path is a different one, white gravel lined with flowerbeds, already turned over for the winter, and though it is misty because of the rain, no shapes form in the shadows, no spirits dance just beyond her reach. She shivers._

_She walks, stepping silently amongst the pebbles even with her armored boots; old habit. She can be a ghost when she must. She can be a shadow. Patient and quiet, her face a smooth mask, her mind spinning escape plans. They saw that in her right away. They recognized it before she did. Where she saw a flaw, they saw a strength, and they exploited it. Honed it. Made it a weapon. Made her a weapon._

_At the end of the path she’ll find her private haven, a small glass house, its panels neglected and all the plants within overgrown. It never smells of rain in there, only growing, and life, and things left to run wild. She appreciates that. Appreciated? It has been a long time since she last saw the little glass house; it seems as good a place to go now as any. She cannot turn around, she knows. She cannot go back the way she came._

_When she stands at the threshold, however, she sees she is not alone. A dim light glows from within. Someone else is burning her hoarded candles, someone else is hiding in her secret domain. The heat of her sudden anger almost makes her forget the ceaseless cool damp of the rain, but before she can swing the door open and shout down the interloper, the door opens from the inside._

_She knows the girl, has seen her in different mirrors, in different dreams. She is young and lovely (they saw that in her right away, they recognized it before she did, and oh, they wanted to exploit it, hone it, make it a weapon, make her a weapon), even with the scar bisecting her left eyebrow, even with the shadow of grief in her grey-green eyes._

_(Were her eyes always so sad? Were her lips forever frowning? Did she wear her broken heart right there, where everyone could see it? Why did no one say? Why did no one help her?)_

_“Come in.” The young woman looks her over from head to toe, her face furrowed in an expression of utter distaste. “You’re not dressed properly. Well, there’s nothing to be done, I suppose; you haven’t the time to change.”_

_She’s not going to say anything, but the young woman is hardly one to talk; her once-white gown is dark with mud, and darker still at the middle with what can only be old blood. Nothing else stains quite that color. Nothing else stains quite that permanently. The girl moves slowly, as if in pain but without realizing why. Her feet are bare, and leave bloody footprints. The pink ribbon, bloodstained now, wrapped around her hand flutters in the light breeze of the door closing._

_“Not dressed properly for what?”_

_The young woman stops, sending her a withering glare. “For the party, of course. It’s almost time.”_

_“I’m not going to any party. You shouldn’t either, if you know what’s good for you.”_

_The young woman smiles tightly, pushing her hand back through red hair falling in long tousled waves past her waist. It’s a familiar gesture, so familiar it hurts. She will pinch the bridge of her nose next, and shake her head very slightly. All of it will mean she’s irritated. All of it will mean she doesn’t know what to do next, but she’s pretending, oh, she’s pretending so hard. “Of course you are,” she says. “You don’t have a choice.”_

_“I always have a choice.”_

_The girl laughs, sharp and sudden, and is forced to press her hand to her side to keep the fresh blood from flowing. “That’s what you think,” she says. Then she sighs, plucking absently at the skirt of her gown. She frowns when a rhinestone comes away in her fingers, and then she throws the little sparkle over her shoulder, where it disappears into the overgrown greenery. “Forgive me for being so unpleasant last time. I wasn’t myself. It’s only the others… I wasn’t expecting them. They weren’t supposed to be there. But then, you shouldn’t be, either, and here we are.”_

_She gestures at a table set for two. Mismatched teacups sit on either side of a plate heaped high with soggy cookies. They’re the same kind her mother used to make. Reluctantly, she sits in one chair. Like a hostess presiding over a feast, the young woman in bloodstained white takes the other. The tea, when she pours it, doesn’t steam. It smells wrong, too, like flowers. Heavy and cloying. Roses, perhaps, and gardenias. Too strong. Her nose wrinkles and she swallows the urge to gag._

_“Don’t you smell that?” she asks. The young woman lifts her brows and shakes her head, raising her own teacup to her mouth. Her lips come away stained with blood. The smell of flowers grows stronger still. “Stop, there’s—there’s something—can’t you smell it?”_

_“She told me to tell you something,” the young woman says. “She wants you to know she’s sorry.”_

_She blinks, startled by the change of subject. “Who? Sorry for what?”_

_“You’ll see.”_

_The walls of the glass house begin to rattle, like thunder, like an earthquake, like the tell-tale rumble of a a thresher maw about to surface. “You should get out of here,” she says, already on her feet and reaching for a weapon. All her holsters are empty, though, and her grasping fingers meet only air._

_“I told you,” the girl says mournfully. “You aren’t dressed for the party.”_

_It’s all the warning she has before the walls of the house shatter, blasting inward, scoring her bare cheeks with shards of glass; she turns her head just in time to avoid taking one in the eye. The rest bounce harmlessly off her ablative plate. The young woman isn’t nearly so lucky. Her gown is a ruin of tattered chiffon and fresh bloodstains; glass glints when she turns her face, embedded in her skin; her hair has darkened to a different shade of red._

_“Go!” she screams at the young woman in the voice that never fails to make new recruits jump and run. “Go, go, go!”_

_But the girl only stands there, staring, blood running down her bare arms in rivulets and dripping from her hands, drip drip drip like rain on dying leaves, like tears, like endings._

_“I can’t,” she says. “And neither can you. You just don’t know it yet. You just don’t remember.”_

#

Shepard woke gasping, clawing at the phantom glass still trapped in her hair, when she realized she was bracketed by the comforting warm weight of turian, curled like a parenthesis behind her. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Garrus’ voice, low and sleepy, murmured a steady stream of reassurances while her heart kept on trying to break its way out of her chest. _You just don’t remember, you just don’t remember, you just don’t remember._ His hand rubbed soothing circles against her spine.

“You were shivering,” he said, as if to explain his closeness. As if she were the one who _needed_ an explanation. Still, his heat was familiar and good and _right_. She leaned into it, into him, trying to banish the lingering scent of flowers and rain and blood. He smelled good; guns and metal and something indefinably _Garrus._ “Bad dream?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Bad enough I think I’m done. Go back to sleep, if you want.”

She felt him chuckle. Oh, she loved that feeling. It was almost as nice as his hands and his warmth. “No point. Pretty sure Joker’s going to give us the hour-until-landing warning any time.”

Turning her head, she tried to find a smile for him, and mostly succeeded. Garrus evidently wasn’t convinced. His mandibles flicked in telltale worry and he said, “Want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“ _Need_ to talk about it?”

A more genuine smile forced its way onto her face. “Probably. But since I’m moving at roughly the rate of molasses in January, it’s going to take me every available minute to make myself presentable.”

He propped himself up on one elbow, the other hand still resting on her back. “Want help?”

She echoed his chuckle. “If I say no, are you going to ask if I need it?”

“Seems likely. There’s a precedent.”

“You offering to scrub my back, Vakarian? Because we both know that usually ends up adding to the prep time, not making things go quicker.”

The joke—the innuendo—fell from her lips easily, the same as always, the same as Before. And she froze, waiting for him to react to it and fearing that reaction. They’d made… progress, in the last week. More than she’d hoped for, more than she’d thought possible in the most pessimistic moments after she’d woken up to find her whole universe tilted on an axis she couldn’t have anticipated. But they weren’t at the joking-about-reach-and-flexibility stage, since they hadn’t yet returned to the _engaging_ -in-reach-and-flexibility stage. It was the enormous elephant in a very small room, lurking where she couldn’t ever quite escape from it.

Not that her flexibility was functioning at optimal levels. And the doctor would probably frown at the exertion and make dire predictions about recovery time.

Garrus dipped his head, nuzzling the nape of her neck. It was his way of apologizing. It was his way of saying he wasn’t ready. But it was also closeness, and comfort, and real. Even it was right, in its way.

Sitting up, she reached for his hand and said, “But thank you for the offer. We’ll, uh, see how well I manage pants without a stretchy waist all by myself.”

Placing both palms at her sides, flat against the mattress, she levered herself upright. The bones, she knew, were no longer broken; the doctor had given her that all-clear days ago. But her injuries from her ordeal on the _Valiant_ had barely been memories when that last push on Earth hit. Two serious breaks in less than six months took their toll, no matter how many heavy bone weaves and skin weaves and muscle weaves a woman had crammed into her body. Her left hip and right knee still ached, and she had to move at a fraction of her usual brisk pace to keep from limping. Or falling. Physical therapy was hell, but it was a necessary one. Just for the next twenty-four hours, at least, she wanted to look like she didn’t need any. Wherever her enemies were hiding, let them see her strong. Let them see her with chin lifted and shoulders straight, walking on legs that oughtn’t have been healed for months yet. Let them wonder. Let them _tremble_.

She snorted. Or she could stick to not falling. Not falling would be good.

“You okay?”

“Just reveling in my own hubris.” Certain her legs would hold her, she put a hand to the fish tank wall and took a few steps. She’d slept funny and the knee was sorer than usual; she hoped the steam in the shower would loosen it a bit. Her damned cabin had never seemed so large, and she knew she had many times that distance to cover before the day was out. 

After a moment, Garrus sat up and moved through his familiar pattern of neck rolls and shoulder shrugs, trying, she knew, to work out the worst of the kinks left from another night spent sleeping on a strange, flat human mattress without even an appropriately supportive turian pillow. She paused, hand against the coolness of the fish tank, and shook her head. Stupid oversight. She should’ve found something for him ages ago, back when the Citadel had goddamned _shops_ carrying things like turian pillows. But he’d never complained, and she’d always had eight thousand things on her mind, and while he was busy making sure she got enough—some— _any_ sleep, she’d done nothing to improve the comfort of his.

Some things, she thought, some things had to change.

Before she could apologize, he tilted his head, confused, and asked, “Shepard? What’s… molasses? And why does it move slowly in… January?”

Oh, hubris. She laughed so hard and so suddenly Garrus was forced to lope across the room at a jog to keep her from tumbling face-first up the stairs. She let him take the bulk of her weight as far as the bathroom door, and kissed his shoulder because it was the highest point she could reach without standing on her unstable tiptoes. He bent to make a second kiss easier. “Yell if you need me.” His mandibles fluttered into a grin. “I’ll never be able to show my face again if I’m forced to report back to the admiral that Commander Shepard drowned in her own shower on my watch.”

She punched him lightly, easily, nothing to strain her newly-healed bones, and was followed into the bathroom by the sound of his laughter.


	40. Where the Sun Beats

It took Garrus a moment to place why Shepard looked different when she finally emerged from the bathroom some time later, even apart from the crisp dress blues hanging a little loose on a frame diminished by illness and forced inactivity, or the blush painted on her cheeks to mimic a semblance of vitality.

“Your… hair,” he said.

“Looks good? And my waist is very supportive?” Her tired smile didn’t quite make it to her eyes. She’d used some of her paint there, too, he noticed. Not the dark she wore on her eyelids, but something light, to hide the shadows beneath; no mere shower could wash those away, no matter how hot she ran it, no matter how long she stood with her head bent beneath the spray. 

Shepard might’ve decided on a uniform instead of a hardsuit, but her armor was in place all the same. He wondered how many other people were equipped to see it for what it was. Not many, he thought. Not many.

She put a hand to her head, where the soft fall of red waves he’d almost grown accustomed to seeing loose around her face had been pulled back into a knot. It was a configuration of hair that, while once commonplace, he’d last seen as Shepard threw a wave and a grin over her shoulder before disappearing into a Citadel crowd. 

On the _Normandy_ ’s final day in dock, after the final battle with Saren, they’d met for drinks. He’d talked about his decision to go back to C-Sec. She’d told him she always had a berth for him. He’d thought about taking her up on it. He really had. In the end, though, he’d declined and she’d smiled a smile he only recognized years and a lexicon of smiles later as a disappointed one, before promising she’d be by to catch up—and see if he’d changed his mind—the next time the _Normandy_ passed near the Citadel. A month, she’d said. Maybe two. The Council, while grateful for her assistance—and for saving their sorry asses at the cost of human lives—was still intent on keeping a close eye on her. It had been the most painfully normal of conversations, yet layered with things unspoken. He’d been astonished later to realize how soon he started missing her. Pallin wasn’t big on friendly chats or keeping track of headshot totals. (Pallin wasn’t big on headshots _period_.) A Reaper crashing into the Citadel hadn’t changed all the things about C-Sec that had always made him chafe.

And then Shepard had died.

 _The_ Normandy _went down over Alchera._

Her hair had been different when he saw her next, short new curls framing a face he’d been certain he’d never see again. One with different scars and the same smile. He’d never questioned, never doubted. _You realize this plan has me walking into hell, too, right?_

“Sorry,” she said, running a hand along the smooth strands the same way he sometimes ran his own over his fringe. He wasn’t sure if it was an echo of his gesture, or a bastardized version of the way she pushed her hand through her hair when it was down. “Bad joke. How do I look?”

His mandibles flared in a slight smile. “Like Commander Shepard.”

He heard the words after they’d already been spoken, and regretted them instantly when her expression froze, as startled as someone who’d just realized a laser-sight was hovering right in the middle of her forehead. He didn’t miss the way her hand closed into a brief fist at her side, or the way a muscle in her jaw jumped as she clenched her teeth. 

He amended, too late, “That’s not what I—”

The smile that broke the frozen mask wasn’t weary and it wasn’t amused; it was tight and jagged and frustrated. As penance, instead of looking away as he wanted to do, he watched the wave of emotion he’d unwittingly loosed crest over her features before fading once more into a kind of false stillness that looked like calm and was anything but. “I know. You weren’t aiming for the open wound. It’s fine. Hell, Commander Shepard’s exactly what I was going for. Much better than ‘death warmed over’ or ‘invalid barely keeping herself upright.’” She gave her shoulders a little shake, rolled them, and settled them once more in a straight line. “All right,” she said. “That’s that. Nothing more I can do here. I guess it’s showtime. You ready to do this thing, Vakarian?”

“Right behind you, Shepard,” he said. If she heard the regret in his subharmonics, she didn’t acknowledge it. Still, he hoped she recognized it for what it was. Genuine. An apology.

#

It wasn’t raining in Vancouver. As the outer doors opened, Garrus had to lift his hand to shade his eyes from the unfamiliar glare. In the weeks they’d been gone, damp spring had blossomed into the kindest version of summer the city could offer, given its ragged, recovering state and the debris still lingering in the atmosphere. Even the broken buildings looked cheerier in the brightness of the sunlight, and behind them stood jagged green mountains he’d barely noticed the last time, lost as they’d been amidst the clouds and mist. Standing just a half-step in front and to the right of him, Shepard paused on the lip of the gangway, her hand clutching at the railing. He was close enough to see her white knuckles. Her fingers curled and uncurled several times before she let go entirely. _Showtime._

Below them, a sea of faces looked up. He had no idea how they’d managed to assemble so quickly; except for unavoidable landing checks, they’d brought the _Normandy_ in as silent as possible. “Surprise is the best way to catch someone with their pants down,” Shepard had said, sitting next to Joker in the cockpit to buy herself a little more time off her legs. 

“Or the best way to get yourself shot by someone with a twitchy trigger finger who doesn’t like surprises,” Joker had replied. “Your call, boss.”

Garrus hadn’t been sure if the words had been meant for him or for Shepard, but he’d let them slide anyway. Somehow he suspected Shepard was the one they’d be shooting at, if shots were fired, and if she was willing to take the risk, he was willing to follow her.

The warmth of the sun was still chillier than anything Palaven’s offered, even in the cooler months, but it was better than the endless drizzle of before. Thinking now of Joker’s dire prediction, Garrus scanned the crowd, looking for anomalies. Watching Shepard’s six. He huffed a disconsolate little sigh. _Just like old times._ This time, though, he didn’t think their enemies would be considerate enough to look like heretic geth or Reaperized hybrids or Cerberus lackeys in white, black and yellow. Level 8, his dad had said. No turians in this crowd. No Wrex. No asari. A human welcoming party for a human hero.

His plates itched. Not quite right. Not quite _wrong_ , either. Nothing he could put a finger on.

Good hunches had made him a good detective, though. He’d learned never to ignore them.

He recognized Allers in the crowd, front and center, followed by her hovering camera. Beside her, a knot of other reporters jostled for prime placement—al-Jilani looked hungry, but wasn’t pushing too near; in deference to her former position as the _Normandy_ ’s resident newswoman, Allers had evidently been given point. Most of the other faces belonged to Alliance personnel, all in uniform. No civilians other than the press, Garrus noted, and the honor guard was armed; Hackett wasn’t taking chances. Something right? Or something wrong? 

A moment later, Garrus’ gaze found the admiral himself, standing alone and to the left, hands linked loosely behind his back. The sun was behind him; Garrus couldn’t read his expression.

Right or wrong?

The clamor of voices was deafening, but Shepard merely lifted her chin and took it in, gaze sweeping the crowd as Garrus’ had just done. He had no doubt she, too, was scanning for unknown hostiles, enemies wearing the borrowed innocence of blue uniforms or press badges. Her lips curled slowly into that least-genuine of smiles, the one he recognized as her first line of defense against people she didn’t particularly like and didn’t particularly want to deal with. It looked good, though. It was exactly the kind of smile calculated to keep news reporters at arm’s length. It said, _do this on my terms, and you get a soundbite. Try and push on yours, and you get nothing but my back._

Still smiling, she raised the hand that had been clenching the railing white-knuckled only moments earlier, and she gave a wave that might’ve seemed jaunty, if he’d believed it was authentic. In spite of the sunlight, a cool breeze blew off the ocean. Garrus was close enough to see the way Shepard stiffened to keep from shivering.

This, he wanted to amend, was Commander Shepard. _The_ Commander Shepard. The symbol. The avatar. The myth. Not even Allers had seen a Shepard other than this one. Hell, Allers had helped _create_ this one. This woman, with her smile and her wave and her spine held rigidly straight to keep the exhausted, chilled shakes from showing was their hero, their savior. Heroes didn’t get to tremble. Heroes didn’t get to frown. Heroes didn’t get to have bad days or broken bones or broken hearts.

It was, he feared, too late to pull her aside and confess how wrong he’d been up in their cabin, how mistaken, how blind.

Perhaps she’d been wearing the costume already, but the woman who’d walked out of the bathroom earlier and tentatively touched her unfamiliar hair had still been _his_ Shepard, the one whose armor he recognized (and whose chinks he was familiar with), the one whose face he always knew, no matter what role she was playing, no matter what mask she wore. The Shepard who laid herself bare, who trusted him even when she did not trust herself. The woman—not a symbol, not a myth—who’d placed her heart in his hands, wrapped his fingers around it, and said without having to speak, _take care of this if you can, but if you can’t I won’t hold it against you. I know how much it weighs. I know how fragile it is._

As he watched her prepare to take her first step toward the waiting throng, undaunted, unbeaten, no hint of her private suffering worn on her ever-so-public face, his breath caught the same way it had once caught as he peered through his scope at the end of his life and saw salvation barreling across a narrow bridge on Omega. “Shepard,” he said softly, too quiet for anyone but her to hear, “wait.”

She threw him a tilted smile—strained but not angry; she wanted this over with and she wanted it over with five minutes ago—her brow arching. “Can’t put it off too much longer,” she replied, lips hardly moving. “I’ve got about fifteen minutes left in these legs. Guess I should be glad it wasn’t a parade.”

He reached into one of the compartments of his gear, freeing a silver chain and its chipped and dented burden. “You’re missing part of your kit,” he said. Confusion replaced query on her face, and below them he knew the crowd was growing impatient to see their savior up close and personal. He held out his hand, and her dog tags dangled from his first finger, sun throwing sparks as it glinted off the metal he’d so painstakingly polished. Her lips parted in a silent ‘o’, small and startled and genuine. Then, instead of reaching for her tags, she bent her head, baring the naked nape of her neck to him.

_Take care of this if you can._

Careful not to catch either his hands or the metal chain on her hair, he slid the dog tags around her neck. Straightening, she didn’t immediately tuck them into her armor, leaving them instead to shine against her chest. Her fingertips dropped to touch the metal, and though he knew she would doubtless blame the sun if anyone were foolish enough to draw attention to the moisture in her eyes, he saw the tears for what they were. Homecoming. Relief. Below them, a knot of marines called out some kind of welcoming or appreciative war-chant, and the smile Shepard sent their way was a bigger one, a brighter one. 

Then, however, she turned her searching gaze back on him. “Does this mean—”

He stopped her before she could finish. “It means they’re yours, and I should’ve given them back long before this.”

The sudden smile she offered him definitely touched her eyes, and was certainly warmer than the pallid Vancouver sunlight.

“Fuck,” said Jack, lounging behind them in the airlock, “you’ve got about thirty seconds to kiss her, Vakarian, or I’m gonna fucking do it. Haven’t you ever seen a war vid? She’s the returning hero.”

“Didn’t know there was a protocol on returning war heroes,” he murmured.

“Traditionally the returning war hero does the kissing,” she said lightly, her eyes still watching him so very, very carefully. Gauging his reaction, he realized. Waiting for him to back away. Giving him an out, the way he’d always tried to do the same, back when he wasn’t sure how invested she was, back when he wasn’t sure if he’d be drinking the better-than-on-a-vigilante’s-salary wine alone or with her. “And it’s some poor innocent in the crowd. Maybe Allers’ll be—”

He didn’t give her time to finish. _I want something to go right. Just once. Just…_ Perhaps it wasn’t a back-bending dip—she’d kill him if her legs gave out in front of an enraptured audience—but it was both arms around her and a hand cradling her bare neck and her lips laughing against his mouth, and when they broke apart a few moments later, they stood beside each other instead of one in front of the other, and he let his hand linger at her lower back a little longer than strictly necessary.

She was human again, _Shepard_ again—not Commander, just _Shepard,_ his Shepard—as she threw another wave at the cheering crowd, and she was still grinning as she made her way down the gauntlet, ignoring reporters and questions, unerringly heading for Hackett. Her limp was barely noticeable. Hell, her step almost had a _bounce_ in it. Schooling her face into less boisterous lines, she gave the admiral a crisp salute.

Then, confused, she cast another look around and asked, “Where’s Alenko? You didn’t send him back already, did you?”

And Hackett blinked, as genuinely startled as Garrus had ever seen him, and replied, “Good God, Shepard, isn’t he with you?”

A cloud covered the sun, briefly shrouding them all in darkness all the more stark for being sudden. Shepard’s smile died. “Curiouser and curiouser,” she said gravely. She didn’t sound at all curious. She sounded _pissed off_. Glancing at Garrus, she shook her head. _Not here_ , that look said. _Not now._ It was a look that said someone, somewhere, had some answering do to, and woe betide anyone foolish enough to stand in Shepard’s way.


	41. Still the World Pursues

Infiltration—whether via stealth operation or willful deception—was a risky game. Like a cutthroat match of Skyllian Five all-in with everything on the line, a player who wanted to win had to be conscious of all known variables—the cards in hand, the cards already down, one’s own tells as well as those of any and all opponents—while being equally aware the turn of the wrong card could throw an entire plan out the window and leave no way to victory save bluffing. Shepard was good at it—knew damned well she was good at it—but bluffing was always a last desperate act; she much preferred winning by skill.  

When the return to Earth had become a necessity rather than an eventuality, when all the cards on the table spelled _bad fucking news_ in every language she knew and a few she didn’t, Shepard started planning. Planning she could do. Planning she was good at. Exactly three people—including herself—were in on this particular scheme. The admiral wasn’t one of them. She’d prepared to the best of her ability, but was also uncomfortably aware all the preparation in the world couldn’t completely discount the influence of chance. Sometimes that chance was a stroke of luck. Sometimes it was a wrench thrown into the gears with force enough to make her lose a game she’d been cockily certain of winning. 

Shepard didn’t mind losing the occasional round of Skyllian Five. She cared a whole lot more when real lives were on the line. And she hated wrenches, unless she was the one doing the throwing, and someone else’s plan was the one fouled up because of it. It was one thing to convince a party full of strangers you were a woman called Alison Gunn. It was quite another to stand in front of a commanding officer and hope betrayal wasn’t the the card flipped on the turn.

For all her jokes and irritation over the years at his constant abuse of her willingness to drop everything for him, Hackett had never been anything but a supporter. Oh, he’d sent her into high-risk missions without batting an eye, but he’d always done so while projecting the unwavering certainty that no matter what risk he was throwing her into, he believed she’d come through it on the other side, mission accomplished. He mightn’t have been able to publicly stand with her after Aratoht, but she had no doubt he’d petitioned tirelessly on her behalf while she stewed in her comfortable brig afterward. 

Speaking of infiltration missions gone pear-shaped. Speaking of unanticipated variables. She still had nightmares when she remembered fighting her way through wave after wave after _wave_ of hostiles, certain her heat sinks would never last. She still had nightmares about the crackle of the comms, and the dread certainty she’d failed to warn Aratoht in time. But she’d meant it when she told Garrus she didn’t think Admiral Hackett was involved in whatever was happening _now_. 

_Knowingly._

Unwittingly was a whole separate question, and one she didn’t yet have the answer to.

She wasn’t the only good Skyllian Five player in the galaxy, after all. And she sure as hell wasn’t the only player in this particular game who’d ever learned to manipulate a situation to their advantage. The galaxy was full of politicians, and if the war with the Reapers had taught her anything, it was that a politician with a reasonable hand wasn’t folding for anything, even when they should. Imminent and certain death hadn’t been enough to keep manipulation and stupidity from turning out in force.

Shepard didn’t cheat at cards when she was playing with friends, colleagues, people she respected. But she knew how. Of course she did. Had to know how to cheat in order to spot a cheater, her father had taught her. It was a hell of a lesson. She’d certainly never forgotten it. Manipulating the current situation—media attention, Hackett’s expectations, the adulation of a crowd expecting a hero—felt a little like she was providing a distraction while slipping the hidden card from her sleeve. Fixing a wide-eyed, confused expression upon her face— _don’t make a fist, don’t shuffle your feet, don’t clench your jaw; know your tells, Shepard, know your tells_ —she asked, “Where’s Alenko? You didn’t send him back already, did you?

Her knees shook a little with relief— _not exhaustion, relief_ —as the admiral’s face contorted in genuine confusion. He found his voice quickly enough, and if she were a betting woman—which she was, frequently; hell, _no one_ would have given her good odds on patching things up between the turians and krogan—she’d have laid solid credits on Admiral Hackett realizing about three seconds after she murmured, “Curiouser and curiouser,” that he might not know what game she was playing, but a game was definitely afoot. She let the confusion slide away and replaced it with anger. Determination. _Let the cameras see me strong. Let them see me with chin lifted and shoulders straight, walking on legs that oughtn’t have been healed for months yet. Let them wonder. Let them_ tremble _._

Her lips curled in a dangerous smile, and this one wasn’t pretend.

“Commander?” Hackett said, dropping his voice. “Something we need to discuss?”

“Oh, I should think so, sir,” she replied blithely, sending a swift hand signal in Garrus’ direction— _check the perimeter_. She turned the motion into a wave encompassing the waiting press. “But I ought to give them the soundbite they’re waiting so patiently for before we go.”

This was her least favorite part of the game, her least favorite part of the ruse. Visibility was supposed to be anathema to the spec ops infiltrator. A known face was a liability; a known face could be recognized when you least wanted it to be. It was the mess after Elysium all over again, her face on all the vids and perfect strangers approaching her in the street, calling her by name and shaking her hand. Even now, her thumb ached to activate her tactical cloak, and at least part of the tremble in her legs was their desire to be crouched behind cover and not out here in the open, with a hundred pairs of eyes fixed on her. 

She couldn’t hide. Not anymore. At some point during the Reaper War, _Commander Shepard_ had become a politician. She knew it. So did they. Even if no one was willing to speak the damned word aloud.

Under the pretense of looking around, taking in the sight of the broken city and the mountains behind— _glass exploding and dead bodies and Anderson pressing the gun into her hand before they ran for the_ Normandy _and under it all the bass-thrum horror of Reaper claxons and the dead boy, the dead boy, always the dead boy_ —Shepard glanced toward the waiting skycar.

Jack, having left the comfortable solitude of the airlock, was already leaning against the passenger side door, arms crossed over her chest, watching the proceedings with her usual bored expression and eyes that missed nothing. Garrus, somehow managing to look both menacing and relaxed at the same time, strolled toward Jack and bent his head in conversation, bringing up his omni-tool interface as if to show her something. Lifting his eyes, he flicked his mandibles in a brief but bolstering smile. 

Touching her fingertips to the dog tags hanging around her neck, she allowed herself the hint of a very private, very genuine smile. _It means they’re yours._ The solid weight of the tags around her neck grounded her in a way she hadn’t known she was missing. _It means I’m me._ They were like drawing the one card you’d been hoping for—the only card that could save a dying hand—when you’d already been certain of losing. And trust Garrus to provide the lucky card; he’d been the ace up her sleeve since he’d first greeted her with _Commander Shepard? Garrus Vakarian. I was the officer in charge of the C-Sec investigation into Saren._ Before they’d disembarked, she’d hoped only that her return would be enough to feed the inevitable media machine. Now, between the triumphant return and the private moment made public and the hero’s kiss, she felt certain the vids would be looking in exactly the direction she wanted them to look. Away.

But that kiss, that moment, the tags around her neck: they were real. They were real, and they were _hers._

She returned to the gauntlet of reporters and nodded at Allers. “I think you’ve probably earned your exclusive, Diana,” Shepard said, settling into an easy parade rest. She knew it was all in her head, but the empty spot where Garrus had stood felt cooler, unprotected. She stiffened her spine to keep from shivering as the chilly breeze ghosted against the bare skin of her neck.

“Commander,” Allers greeted, watchful eyes wary. “It’s good to see you. We’ve had a lot of conflicting reports in the last couple of months.”

“I just bet you have. I should warn you, you’ve only got about three minutes to coax a decent quote out of me.”

“It’s been two and a half months since the final push in London, Commander. Where have you been since the Reapers fell?”

Shepard slipped into the faint smile that said _now, now, we both know that’s classified_. Allers gave an apologetic little shrug that replied _sorry, you know I have to ask_. “Recuperating,” Shepard said. “Doctor’s orders. Nothing like space for peace and quiet. I had a busy run there for a while. Hope you didn’t throw that wake prematurely.”

In the crowd, someone laughed uneasily. Allers didn’t. “And now, Commander? What’s next for you?”

“I was promised a tropical retirement, actually.” This required a bit of a smirk. Shepard’s cheeks ached as she slid the mask into place.

“You, Commander? _Retire_?”

Before… _everything_ , she’d have quipped something like _the war’s over and I’m a new woman, Allers,_ but the witticism fell flat, even in her own head. Her smile trembled on the edge of sick, of sour. “I’m sure I’ve got a backlog of paperwork that’ll keep me busy for the next decade.” 

“No plans to throw your hat into the political ring?”

“None whatsoever.”

“And what about the rumors that have you pegged for the next Human Councilor?”

Shepard chuckled mirthlessly. “I think I’d rather end up bored silly on a beach. Or up to my eyeballs in outstanding mission reports.”

Allers’ eyes narrowed, and her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. One of her tells, Shepard knew. The one that said she was about to ask a hard question, the kind of question that invariably led to highly suspect replies of _no comment._ Before Allers could speak, Shepard shook her head and said, “We’re not even three months into the dawn of an age we were told wouldn’t come, Diana. Whatever part I played is over now; I’d like to hope this is no longer a time for soldiers. Let the peacemakers work.”

“Aren’t you a peacemaker, Commander?”

“Oh, no. I’m just a soldier. Same as I ever was.” Shepard rolled her shoulders and gestured toward the waiting car. “It’s been a pleasure, Allers, but I should—”

“Even if you decline the post of Human Councilor, isn’t it true Garrus Vakarian stands next in line for the position of Primarch of Palaven?”

 _Wrench_ , Shepard thought, desperately begging her smile not to slip, _meet gears._

“If that’s the case, it looks like we’re definitely not going to be allowed our beach retirement,” she remarked mildly. “You’ll have to get Primarch Victus to speak to the details, though. I’m afraid I’m no expert in the inner workings of the Turian Hierarchy.” Her nod was sharp, dismissive, and she turned away as quickly as her aching bones would let her, ignoring the press of shouted questions behind her.

When she reached the skycar, she gestured for Hackett to precede her. When one of his aides made to enter after, she shook her head, and took the other rear seat. Jack was already sitting in the front. A moment later, Garrus slipped into the driver’s seat.

“What’s the meaning of this, Commander?” Hackett said, as soon as the doors dropped closed and locked. “Vakarian?”

Shepard ignored him for a moment, leaning forward, her head half-turned to keep Hackett in her sights. To Garrus she said, “How’s the weather?”

“Turians hate cold,” Garrus drawled. An echo of a more genuine anxiety rumbled just below the easy-going surface. “And this planet is damned chilly.”

“I’ll knit you a scarf,” she said, smiling her fake smile.

“If I knew what that was, I’m sure I’d appreciate it.”

“Commander Shepard?” Hackett pressed.

“Sorry, sir,” she said, sitting back and, resting her hands against her aching thighs. Her palms were sweaty, though the car was neither particularly warm nor cool. She was asking her body for too much, too soon, but it couldn’t be helped. The pain served to sharpen rather than dull her senses, though she knew that was a precipice she couldn’t stand on for long. Adrenaline would give out eventually. “Can it wait for a bit? I never did care for the press. Too many eyes on me; makes my neck itch. And I’m always so afraid of saying the wrong thing while the cameras are on me. Never know who’s watching.”

Hackett shifted in his seat, saying nothing but blinking his surprise. She allowed the smile to drop, and gave a single nod.

“Don’t suppose you could direct our good driver to… uh, wherever it is I’m meant to be staying? Between you and me? I’m overdue for about thirty-two hours of sleep. In a row.”

Hackett squinted at her. She didn’t pretend to smile now; she imagined sitting so close he could see exactly how tired she looked, exactly how worn. Then he leaned forward himself, and directed Garrus through the quiet skies. She didn’t have perspective, but she thought they were near the outskirts of whatever perimeter the Alliance had set for their camp. The small prefab building had been constructed under a canopy of trees, though the leaves were limp and pale; not enough sun. Shepard didn’t look skyward, was careful not to look skyward. Later. Later.

“Actually,” Shepard said as she hoisted herself out of the skycar, “come to think of it, I’m not tired at all. What do you say to a little sight-seeing, Admiral? Did you call us a cab, Garrus?”

His mandibles flicked. “Should be here any minute.”

“Commander, this is highly—”

“Irregular?” she finished. “Oh, I know. Necessary, though.”

“I fail to see why.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s part of the problem.”

Hackett shook his head, and she could see him deciding whether or not to follow her lead. The twitch of his right eyebrow, the faint pursing of his lips, his thumb and forefinger pressing together until the tips turned pale. Little tells. When the cab pulled up a moment later, though, he didn’t wait for her to open the door; he stepped into the back without prodding. Garrus moved around the other side.

Jack, in a low voice, said, “Full house, Shepard. You can only fit so many bodies in that car. You still worried about your Trojan Horse?”

Shepard frowned. “The admiral’s on his guard. I don’t think he’d hesitate.”

Jack regarded her evenly. “Maybe I’ll wait here, yeah? See what kind of bullshit they left for the hero of the fucking Reaper War to snack on.”

“Help yourself,” Shepard said. “And… thank—”

“Don’t,” Jack said. “Gratitude gives me fucking hives.”

Once Shepard was safely in the back of the cab, and the doors were closed and locked, Hackett said, “Now are you going to tell me what this is all about, Shepard?”

The cab’s driver turned and removed a hat that had been pulled low over his brow. “Admiral,” Kaidan said, wincing apologetically. “Sorry for the deception.”

A turian sat in the passenger seat, silvery plates a little dulled with age, but eyes still intensely sharp. Even if she hadn’t recognized the markings, she’d have known the blue of those eyes anywhere. “Don’t apologize,” the turian said. “The admiral’s staff is compromised. The deception was a necessary one.” He gave Shepard the briefest of nods. “Commander Shepard? Kaius Vakarian. A pleasure to finally meet you.”

On the other side of Hackett, Garrus sat very, very still.

“The pleasure’s all mine, sir.”

“What do you mean, my staff is compromised?” Hackett asked.

Vakarian replied, “A rather self-explanatory accusation, Admiral, no less true for being unpleasant. You have a mole. And we are going to find out who it is.”

She smiled faintly, suddenly certain Garrus’ father was one _hell_ of a Skyllian Five player. 


	42. Hushing the Room Enclosed

The silence in the cab was absolute for a full ten seconds. Shepard counted. Beside her, Hackett stared down at his empty palms as if trying to read his future there, and was, perhaps, finding it uncertain; she knew exactly how he felt. Garrus glanced at her over the admiral’s head, his mandibles flicking in a silent question. She shook her head. His father’s face did not betray even that much emotion; Vakarian watched Hackett with an utterly inscrutable expression, even by turian standards. Kaidan jammed his hat back over his hair, pulling the brim low, settling his hands on the car’s controls but keeping the vehicle stationary for the moment.

Finally, Hackett raised his eyes to meet hers and said, “My absence will be noted.”

“Not for some time, I believe, sir. Lieutenant Cortez will take the other skycar on a bit of a jaunt, and while I was talking to the press, Garrus was rigging the car with a program to convince anyone listening in that you’re showing me the sights after my long absence. None of us are in a mood for talking, but there’s enough of Garrus and I chattering to keep your listeners tuned in.”

“Interspersed with a few of the more abominable dance hits of the last several years,” Garrus added. “As punishment for their espionage.”

“And let me tell you,” Shepard added mildly, “if anyone knows abominable dance music…”

Garrus shot her an unimpressed look. “Funny, Shepard.”

The entire situation was too serious for laughter, but she did crinkle her eyes at him. Garrus shook his head, sighing an aggrieved sigh.

Hackett didn’t laugh. Not, of course, that she’d expected him to. He had the frayed look unique to someone used to being in the know being completely caught off-guard. Hell, she knew that feeling all too well, when it came down to it. Not quite desperation, but not far off, either, holding tight to all the things one thought were certainties in a suddenly uncertain world. Even if those so-called certainties were not, in point of fact, _truth._

_What truth are you hiding from, Shepard? What lies are you letting yourself believe?_

Crammed as they were in the too-small car, she didn’t have the excuse of cold to explain away her shiver.

“Listeners, though? Moles?” Hackett finally asked, incredulous. “Espionage? We’ve just fought back the worst threat the galaxy has ever known—”

“And were all its inhabitants as noble as you, Admiral, the galaxy might be safe from further strife,” Vakarian explained, with a kind of commendable patience Shepard wasn’t sure she could have emulated in his place. He managed to sound firm without being critical, certain without arrogance. Somehow she doubted Kaius Vakarian let himself be wooed by lies, no matter how comfortable. The left corner of her mouth turned up. No wonder he’d driven Garrus crazy; they were both of them devoted to their causes, their truths, and if those goals or methods weren’t aligned? _That_ , she imagined, had most likely been strife for the ages _._ “But I fear we both know that is not the case. Nor has it ever been.”

Shepard felt the moment Hackett’s skepticism shifted toward belief. His posture said he wasn’t entirely convinced, but was willing to be, given the right incentive. She only wished she had more to offer.

“Are you at least willing to hear us out, sir?” Shepard asked. His lips compressed so slightly she’d never have noticed if she weren’t sitting crammed in the back seat of a skycar with him. 

“If I say no?”

“I’m betting you won’t.”

She knew she had him when his lips twitched upward into the briefest and slightest of smiles. “You play cards, Shepard?”

On the other side of him, Garrus chuckled and shook his head again. Shepard echoed his amusement with a smile of her own. “Occasionally.”

In the front seat, Kaidan breathed a barely audible _ha_.

“Never with me,” Hackett said. “And that’s an order. I have a feeling you’d take me for every damned credit to my name.”

“To be fair,” Kaidan murmured, “she does try to be even-handed with the redistribution of wealth, and she always serves good drinks to soothe the sting of inevitable defeat.”

Shepard acknowledged this with the slight inclination of her head, even as she shifted until she was facing the admiral as squarely as their cramped quarters allowed. Then, with inarguable gravity, she said, “If you say no, I will have to assume your motives are not as clear as I’ve always believed them to be.”

“And you’ll invoke Spectre authority to have me detained indefinitely?” Hackett lifted his hands slightly, his shoulders rolling into a shrug. Shepard didn’t miss the vaguely uncertain look Garrus sent his father’s way, though the older turian couldn’t have seen it from his place in the front seat. The elder Vakarian’s mandibles twitched, but he gave no other outward sign of disapproval. “Or Alenko will.” 

“It would be a last resort,” Shepard agreed. “But if you _are_ compromised, you’re a piece we need removed from the board.”

“Chess, too. Why am I not surprised?” Hackett sighed. “You’ve both remained admirably loyal to the Alliance, I will grant you that, and we all of us know you did not have to. Spectres don’t have to answer to authority like mine.” He folded his hands and placed them in his lap. She had no doubt that, were he standing, he’d have settled into an easy parade rest, those linked hands loose behind his back. “You must have proof, if you’ve managed to convince Detective Vakarian. Your reputation, sir, precedes you.”

The brief flash of amusement—lift of the mandible, tilt of the head, subtle shift of the browplate—was so like Garrus’, she had to swallow a startled little noise of surprise and an inappropriate snort of laughter. “I am quite contentedly retired, Admiral. Vakarian if you must, but Kaius will do. I daresay none of us will remain strangers by the time this afternoon is through.”

Did Vakarian glance her way as he spoke? She couldn’t be entirely sure. Likely. Things had been different when Kaidan had left on his covert mission. Garrus hadn’t entirely trusted her. She hadn’t entirely trusted herself. There’d been no kisses, then, or returned dog tags; no public votes of confidence, or whispers insisting _it means they’re yours_. She reached up and touched the familiar metal, thumbing the dented edge. Reminding herself. Grounding herself.

_What truth are you hiding from, Shepard? What lies are you letting yourself believe?_

_Shut up._

_Tell me,_ an insidious voice she couldn’t name hissed in the back of her head. _Tell me something true. But you can’t, can you? You can’t. Not for certain. Not for sure._

“We good to go then, Shepard?” Kaidan asked.

She deferred to Garrus, silently passing him the question with the cant of her chin.

“We’re good, Alenko,” Garrus replied. A little tension burred the edges of his subharmonics. She’d have nudged him with a companionable—and supportive, for that matter—shoulder if not for an admiral wedged between them. His father’s expression didn’t give away much, but she knew Garrus’ face well enough to catch the hint of approval in the elder Vakarian’s mandibles.

“I’d rather not repeat myself,” Shepard explained after another moment of silence and an expectant eyebrow lift from Hackett. “If you don’t mind bearing with us just a little while longer.”

“This is highly irregular, Commander.”

She smiled mirthlessly. “When isn’t it, Admiral? When isn’t it?”

#

Garrus couldn’t get a read on his father _at all_. Much as he wished it didn’t, it made his plates itch. He didn’t miss the way Shepard’s gaze kept turning that way, either, though she seemed intrigued rather than nervous; his father’s involvement hadn’t, he knew, been precisely part of _her_ plan. He wondered if she was remembering their SR-1 cargo-hold conversations, complete with all the old resentment and frustration that seemed so _immature_ when he thought of it now, a dozen near-deaths and a Reaper War behind them. 

In turn, Garrus wondered if his father was waiting for the break he’d believed inevitable back when he sent Kaidan on this mission in the first place. At least he hadn’t confronted her. Yet. _Hey, Dad, meet my girlfriend. Yeah. Human, Spectre, possibly compromised, hopefully not a clever clone, but I believe in her now the way I didn’t a week ago so go easy._ Right _._ His mandibles twitched as he remembered leaning on one elbow against the Silver Coast Casino’s bar, murmuring, _word is you’re smart, sexy, a wicked shot._

Those things, too, though he was less inclined to fall back on those descriptors with his father.

Shepard leaned back against the seat, a gesture calculated to put others at ease, though Garrus could still sense the coiled strain in the lines of her too-stiff limbs and the carriage of her head atop a too-straight neck. He imitated her nonchalance, leaning one elbow against the door and half-turning to face the interior of the car. Alenko, with the unwavering certainty of a long-time resident, effortlessly lifted the skycar into the air. Traffic was not heavy; doubtless the Alliance had patrols keeping the area clear of unwanted attention, from press and civilian onlookers alike. 

Hackett leaned forward, ostensibly to rest his elbows against his knees, but Garrus knew he was watching where they were going, keeping one eye trained on the windshield as the other watched Shepard.

“I couldn’t help noticing the crowd who came to greet us was universally human,” Shepard said, testing with words the way Garrus would’ve tested with feints in the sparring ring. She made it seem impossibly easy, impossibly casual. Hackett looked vaguely discomfited, and Shepard jabbed with, “Just what kind of strain are we dealing with here? Or are you going to feed me another line about the goodwill left after fighting back the worst threat the galaxy has ever known?”

Here Hackett actually winced, almost as though the words were the physical blow Garrus imagined. “It’s been two and a half months since the final push, Shepard.”

“And memories are short?” she asked, deceptively mild.

Garrus saw the blow coming; the admiral walked right into it. “Resources are strained.”

“Right. Strained resources.” A muscle jumped in Shepard’s jaw. “Victus needs to get home. The quarians want to get back to Rannoch. They might be sharing with the turians, but you’re looking at a steadily depleting supply of dextro rations. Two and a half months is practically a year to the salarians; of course they’re getting antsy. The asari are being oblique, and trying to hold onto a power they refuse to admit they’ve lost.” Her smile didn’t touch her eyes. “If I know him, and I do, I’d guess Wrex is pushing for more than you’re willing to give. More food, more space, fewer restrictions, fewer rules. He’s pretty sure you owe him, you’re pretty sure he’s right, and you don’t have the first clue how to talk down the leader of a force that could grind your battle-weary Alliance soldiers into the ground.” Her hands flexed, a brief spasm that, like the muscle in her clenched jaw, Garrus was certain wasn’t calculated. 

Garrus had to doubt Hackett had any idea how angry she was, or the admiral would never have replied with a deflective, “Work on the relays is… complicated.”

Her expression hardened even further, her eyes bleak and cold as Noverian skies, her lips compressed into an unimpressed line nothing at all like her usual smile, honest in its frustration. “I imagine it is, but of course you’ve diverted all non-essential personnel to repairs. Of course you’ve got every one of those minds you tapped to work on the Crucible now devoted to the problem of fixing the mass relays.”

Hackett bristled, not unlike a varren backed into a corner and preparing to launch an attack, no matter how foolish. No matter how useless. Shepard stood her ground, jaw set and gaze unblinking. “Earth is—”

It was a grave tactical error. Shepard lashed out sharply, her words cutting deep. “Earth is one planet of _many_ hit hard by the Reapers, Admiral. And you have whole _armies_ here desperate to return to the homeworlds they care about as much as you care for yours.”

“My responsibility—”

“Is to the people— _all_ the people—who made your victory possible. Not the ones who happen to look like you. I’d be pissed if I were Wrex, too. Were you trapped on Palaven or Tuchanka, Admiral, I expect you’d be as anxious to return home as Victus and Wrex are.” Shepard shook her head. “Wartime alliances—especially _these_ wartime alliances—were always going to be rife with difficulty afterward. I _expected_ renewed tension between the turians and the krogan. I did _not_ expect humanity to be the weakest link in the chain.”

She closed her eyes briefly, gathering her composure. This, too, Garrus was certain was real and not affectation.

His father said nothing during the entire exchange, and Garrus found himself wishing he were sitting in Shepard’s seat, so he might at least have the advantage of reading any subtle visual clues. At the end of her tirade—her eerily calm, extremely pointed tirade—Shepard lifted her eyes to his father and said, “Do I have the long and short of it, sir?”

“Certainly from the primarch’s perspective, Commander.” Garrus listened intently, but his father’s subharmonics held no meaning other than the truth of his words. “And I believe Urdnot Wrex would also concur.”

She nodded. Wearily. As if having her fears confirmed added to the weight on her shoulders instead of lifting it. She touched her dog tags again, so swiftly it might’ve been an accident. Garrus knew it wasn’t.

While Hackett was waiting for the upper-cut, Shepard felled him with an unexpected flip and a single question. “Where’s the pressure coming from?”

Hackett blinked, his breath catching. If Shepard looked increasingly burdened by knowledge, Hackett suddenly seemed… _relieved_. 

 _Yet another damned responsibility he can throw her way and ask her to shoulder._ Garrus pulled his mandibles tight to his cheeks in an effort not to snap his displeasure, and he closed his hands into menacing fists he knew he couldn’t use without earning Shepard’s wrath. He still _wanted_ to use them, to put physical blows to all the subtle little jabbing words. _Yet another mess he can ask her to clean for him. No wonder he wanted her back again. No wonder he didn’t want to do it alone._

Shepard, either oblivious or pointedly ignoring Garrus’ distress, pressed, “Terra Firma? Cerberus? Some third party with connections to both? I was… I saw what happened on the Citadel.” Her swallow was audible in the sudden silence of the cab. “I know the Council couldn’t have—likely didn’t survive. Humanity stands poised to gain a great deal in the resultant confusion. Udina must be rolling in his goddamned grave that he’s not here to take advantage of it.” She frowned. “But Donnel Udina wasn’t the only politician with a stake in humanity seizing more than its share of power.”

“As I said,” Hackett said. “Resources are strained. You’re… hell, Shepard, you’re not wrong. The question isn’t who _is_ breathing down my neck, but who _isn’t._ ”

“Perhaps further explanation might wait until we’re inside,” Vakarian said. It was Garrus’ turn to blink; his father’s subharmonics thrummed with as much ire as he’d ever heard, and for once none of it was directed his way. He almost felt sorry for the admiral. Almost, but not quite. Garrus snorted. _Not at all, actually. Not even a little. Shepard can’t dig you out of this mess, Hackett. Fight your own fight for a damned change._ “I suspect the primarch and Urdnot Wrex would be as keen to hear the admiral’s explanation as you are, Commander.”

Hackett deflated, but Shepard only nodded, stepping back from the press of confrontation like a fighter waiting for the next round, keen not to lose her edge. “Shepard will do,” she said, echoing his earlier words and sparing him a brief but warm smile. “I daresay none of us will remain strangers by the time this afternoon is through, after all.”


	43. An Age of Prudence

As the skycar pulled to a silent stop outside a building remarkable only because, in spite of its damaged facade it was still mostly intact in an area surrounded by crumbled walls, twisted metal, and shattered glass, Shepard tilted her head and scowled out the window. “Months,” she muttered. “ _Months_ I was in this city and could count on both hands the days the sun shone, with the toes of one foot thrown in for generosity’s sake. Now, when I’m counting on it? Spite, I tell you. Pure meteorological spite.”

Even as she said it, though, she recalled the last day she’d spent in Vancouver. Hard not to. Here, away from the lights and questions, away from the role of _Commander_ and the reporters waiting to record her performance, she could hardly escape the harshness of the changed reality. Gone were the crowds of citizens; gone the streams of skycars; gone the noble skyline. Not, of course, that she’d had much opportunity to explore when last she’d been here. If Alliance HQ were still standing, she doubted she’d recognize the view from her old window. Even with the sun shining, the sky could hardly be called _blue,_ and the clouds, certainly, were no longer white _._ Too much ash, now. Too much smoke. 

How idyllic it had been then, before anyone knew what hell was coming.

Even she, who’d suspected, who’d _seen_ Amanda Kenson’s countdown clock and who’d sent the Project Base asteroid hurtling into the Alpha Relay to stop it, reset it, had been taken in. She’d been so pleased when she opened the blinds that day to find it cheerfully bright outside. Hell, she’d thought it was a good omen when the illusive sun decided to show its face on the day of her hearing. She’d stood at the window, half-heartedly reading over her notes while she watched the little boy playing outside, zooming around his rooftop yard with a toy spaceship. She remembered how clean and clear and blue the sky had been over the mountains. Just before Vega arrived to escort her to the defense committee meeting, she’d let herself take her daydream a step farther, imagining herself back on her own starship. Her legs felt all wrong, even after six months groundside; she wanted artificial gravity, she wanted recycled air, she wanted the constant low thrum of engines. Face turned to the warmth, she’d let herself imagine what it would feel like to head toward Sol’s relay with the sun at her back and purpose in her direction. Palaven first, she’d been thinking. And as soon as they cleared her for _communication privileges_ she had six months of messages to send. Starting with _I’m sorry_ and culminating in _I miss you; are you coming with me?_

Silly dreams, really. She’d still treasured them, for the space of that sun-drenched moment, before the claxons started blaring and windows started breaking and the sky filled with nightmares.

She glanced over at Garrus. He, too, was looking out the window, though she couldn’t begin to imagine what he was thinking. Nothing good, if his posture was any indication. The faint, familiar pang of grief stung her. She wondered what it would take to banish the weariness from his face, to lift the slump of his shoulders he couldn’t entirely keep hidden.

She wondered, not for the first time since she came back to herself, if she was making things better or worse.

Kaidan turned, leaning on one elbow, his words chasing away the last of her memories, and distracting her from the worst of her worries. “If it makes you feel better, I grew up seeing just as many people with umbrellas on sunny days as rainy ones. You won’t look completely out of place. One woman’s umbrella is another’s parasol.”

“I’m not the one who’ll be carrying the parasol.” Shepard sighed. “And rain would have added to the gravitas.”

Garrus huffed a breathy chuckle. At least she could still make him laugh. That, she supposed, counted for something. Hackett, on the other hand, gave her the kind of look that made her wonder if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head. She smiled, more for herself than for the admiral, and directed a mocking, faintly aristocratic wave in Kaidan’s direction. “Well, driver? If you’d be so kind? Goodness knows I don’t want to get my hair wet.”

Even beneath the brim of his hat, Kaidan’s expression was unmistakably disgruntled, though she was pretty sure the peevishness was as much an affectation as her haughtiness. “One of these days, Shepard. One of these days.”

“Hey,” she said, holding her hands up, “you’re the one who volunteered.”

Kaidan snorted as he rescued a large umbrella from the passenger side and opened the door. “You and I have very different ideas about what the word _volunteer_ means, I think.”

Shepard feigned dismay. “You said you knew the city. In fact, I believe there was a little ‘like the back of my hand’ boasting? You were the obvious choice. Though, you have to admit Grunt as chauffeur might’ve made for a funnier story.”

“Javik,” Garrus intoned. “You could get all your wrong turns and missed connections with a side of ‘in my cycle we turned left here’ or ‘these primitive pedestrians should know better than to walk where cars might hit them.’”

Kaidan rolled his eyes as he effortlessly opened the umbrella and swept it up. “And yet somehow this isn’t what I envisioned when I got the whole ‘Spectres protect the galaxy by any means necessary’ speech.”

Shepard shaded her eyes until Kaidan blocked the sun—and any unlikely prying eyes—with his body and the wide canopy of the umbrella. Kaidan returned the nod she sent his way with gravity equal to hers, and Shepard activated her tactical cloak as she slid from the car. She found herself grateful for the moment of virtual invisibility; the smile slipped from her face and she bent at the waist, bracing her hands against her thighs. Her dog tags clinked together as they swung forward, dangling below her lowered chin. She let herself rest this way for six seconds of the thirty Solana had managed to mod her cloak up to. Then she straightened, rolled her shoulders, and lifted her chin. 

_Act Two. Enter all, stage left._

Kaidan, with Hackett all but invisible under the umbrella, had already reached the door of the building. The street was empty, though a few valiant birds greeted them with cheerful trills. Garrus trailed his father, his distinctive visor removed and one of those strange turian hood-hats hiding most of the recognizable facial scarring. Still, he walked swiftly, head down. Shepard, up to twenty-two seconds on her cloak’s clock, moved forward as quickly as her aching legs allowed, and slid through the open door just behind Garrus.

The building had evidently once been a hotel of some repute, if the marble floors and crystal chandelier were any indication. Those floors were cracked and dusty now, the chandelier hanging dangerously crooked, the reception desk unmanned. A dead flower arrangement still remained, only dry sticks amidst a mound of crisp, dropped petals and leaves long since gone brown. Shepard couldn’t even begin to guess what they might have been, once upon a time. Roses, maybe; she thought she could make out their thorns.

The silence pressed heavily, as only silence in a place that begged for sound could do. A grand piano near the sweeping staircase hinted at the music that should have been playing. Voices should have been raised in laughter and conversation, fueled by overpriced drinks in the adjoining bar. The sound of heavy boots hitting the marble was all wrong; the space wanted the sound of expensive heels and soft leather soles, perhaps the swish of long skirts or wool trousers.

She’d spent most of her life despising the masque of the wealthy, the dance performed by the haves while the have-nots begged outside, and now she’d have given her right arm to have just a little of it back again, if only she could scowl and judge, and not wonder how many corpses this hotel still held within its finely-papered walls. 

They hadn’t deserved to die. None of them.

Her cloak dropped, and Kaius Vakarian surveyed the front steps a final time before closing the door. She stood politely at attention, and waited for him to turn. He betrayed no surprise to find her standing so near, and he didn’t immediately move to join the others. His expression seemed pleased; she assumed this meant they hadn’t been followed. He was nearly as tall as Garrus—had probably been taller before age began to press him down—and she lifted her chin to meet his querying gaze.

“Might I have a word, sir?”

This time he didn’t remark on her use of the honorific. He merely inclined his head. Garrus lingered, his mandibles flaring, but Shepard flashed a hand-signal his way, pleading for privacy she didn’t want to ask for aloud. He hesitated, and the swift shift of emotions across his face hinted at about a dozen things he wanted to say but didn’t. A moment later he turned to join Kaidan and the admiral on the other side of the vast foyer, and he didn’t look back. His shoulders remained uneasy, but at least they weren’t slumped. Small victories.

“Were this merely an exchange of pleasantries, I might insist it wait, Commander,” Vakarian said, not quite raising his statement into a question, but the intention clear all the same.

“It isn’t,” she insisted. “I can’t know exactly what Kaidan told you, but things were… strained when he left. Between Garrus and I, I mean. I wanted to give you the chance to… clear me. If you needed to. I… suspect you might feel you need to.”

“I have had rather thorough accounts from both my children,” Vakarian said, neither expression nor subharmonics giving her much in the way of clues. “They agree on most of the salient points. Solana was rather more clear-eyed about you than Garrus, which was to be expected, though my son seems easier now than I was led to believe he would. Solana was quite worried about him. Spectre Alenko offered insight of his own, only moderately less concerned. I believe I have as clear a picture as is possible, given the quantity of unknown variables I assume remain unknown.”

Shepard nodded. “He, uh, seems to have decided I’m not an evil clone. Though I wouldn’t say he’s particularly _easy_.” A frown slipped across her lips before she could straighten them into something more appropriately neutral. “Not if you knew—things were never like this between us before. But that’s not exactly why I wanted to talk you.” Taking a deep breath, she glanced skyward. The ceiling had once been painted, but the fresco had been badly damaged by smoke and water. And Reaper lasers, presumably. She couldn’t make out more than the vaguest of shapes. “I don’t think I pose a threat. But we still don’t know who, precisely, took me, or why. Until that mystery is solved, I have to take every precaution.”

“And does my son know you’re surrounding yourself with a battalion of bodyguards ready to kill you the moment you exhibit erratic behavior?”

She flinched, and didn’t bother trying to hide it. She suspected Kaius Vakarian saw too much as it was, retired or not. 

Before she could reply, he continued, “I noticed you speaking with the tattooed woman as we approached earlier; your expression was not unlike the one you’re wearing now. She was the previous guard on duty?”

“Yes,” Shepard admitted. “And no, Garrus doesn’t know. Not… not in so many words.”

She was used to the way turians didn’t blink as often as humans, but his gaze was too intent for her to pretend it wasn’t because he was trying to take her measure. And succeeding. “Is it that you do not wish to worry him? Or that you do not wish him to know how deeply your own doubt runs?”

A smile pulled at one corner of her mouth, both weary and yielding. “You don’t ask the easy questions, do you?”

His mandibles twitched into something almost like an answering smile of his own. “Easy questions rarely solve cases, Commander.”

“Don’t I know it.” She sighed. “A little of both, if you must know. I won’t—I _don’t_ lie to him. But these last weeks—hell, these last months—have forced him to see me vulnerable in more ways than I thought I could be. Some of them I don’t remember. Most he was helpless to do anything to prevent.” She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, letting the ache ground her. “I don’t… _doubt_ isn’t the right word. I know just enough to be worried, and little else. This—the bodyguards? They’re one of those precautions I mentioned. It’s not that I don’t believe your son capable of doing the right thing, if things went bad. I’d just rather his not be the finger on the trigger. For me. For him. Mostly for him. He’d… he’d have to live with himself afterward, after all.”

“I cannot fault your logic,” Vakarian said, his subharmonics no longer carefully neutral but thrumming with a grief she couldn’t help wondering if he thought remained private. She ducked her head. “Though I would rather mine not be the finger forced to pull that trigger, either, should it come to such a pass. We have had trouble enough between us over the years, my son and I.”

“And I don’t want to add to it,” Shepard said softly. “But I don’t want hesitation to cost lives. You see my dilemma.”

“I won’t hesitate.”

“Let’s hope it’s not necessary. I’m about tired of being moved around like a pawn.” She shook her head. “I can see the other side of the board. I just need to make it over there to get my power back.”

His chuckle was low and rich and made her wish desperately, painfully, this meeting was happening under less fraught circumstances. “You assume I understand your metaphor.”

“You play?”

The flutter of a smirk was so like Garrus’ she nearly laughed herself. “I win,” he said.

“A challenge if I ever heard one,” she mused. “And one I’ll happily accept, once this is done. But now, I think, we’re treading close to the dangerous territory of exchanging pleasantries, and they are waiting for us.”

She knew he’d win, should she ever face him. Somehow it didn’t matter. She suspected she’d learn more about the man by watching him trounce her on a chessboard than she’d pick up in a dozen conversations.

She took three steps before Vakarian’s cleared throat bade her turn again. “Shepard,” he said, with none of his earlier reserve, “thank you.”

“I love him,” she replied, her throat tightening traitorously. “I’d have spared him all of this, if I could.”

She managed to swallow the worst of the tightness before she crossed the room and took her place at Garrus’ side once again. “You okay?” he asked, lowering his voice.

“No,” she replied. “But I will be. And so will you.”

His expression twitched through surprise and befuddlement before landing on wary acceptance. “He didn’t interrogate you, did he?”

She laughed and shook her head. “I was the one who asked to talk to him, remember?”

“Did you interrogate _him_?”

“Ahh, Garrus,” she murmured, bumping her shoulder lightly against him. “Always with the interrogations. No one was interrogated. No interrogations were had.”

He snorted. “I _guarantee_ he was interrogating you. Especially if you think he wasn’t.”

“Perhaps we ought to leave the next batch of interrogations to Victus and Wrex. If we’re lucky, they’ll think the admiral an easier target.”

He laughed again, and offered her a hand up the stairs without ever once drawing attention to how much of her weight he carried, how much of her burden he shouldered in silence.

#

Shepard was expecting Victus and Wrex, of course, but not the familiar hooded figure sitting perched on the edge of the conference room table as though it was merely a comfortable chair, kicking her legs idly back and forth.

“Hey, Shep!” Kasumi greeted brightly, even as she hopped down from her seat and her omni-tool flared to orange life. A few moments later it dimmed again, and she said, “You’re all who you say you are, and no one’s carrying illegal tech—well, other than you, Shep. Where _did_ you get that cloak? And how mad will you be if I, uh, borrow it?”

“Kasumi?” Shepard asked, picking up her dropped jaw and blinking away her surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Well,” Kasumi said, with a head-tilt in Garrus’ direction that spoke as loudly as a significant glance might’ve, had her eyes been visible to glance significantly, “since _someone_ didn’t invite me on the _other_ mission, I was forced to stay here and make myself useful. Garrus may have forgotten me, but Wrex didn’t.”

“I didn’t forget you,” Garrus argued. “I had no idea you were _here_.”

“Oh, good. I love slipping under the radar.” She patted Garrus’ forearm lightly. “No hard feelings. Stealing scientists has been much more fun.”

“Stealing… scientists?” Hackett asked. “What do you— _you’re_ the reason my people keep disappearing? Do you have _any_ idea—”

“How much everyone whose home is elsewhere wants to get back?” Kasumi interjected, her tone as edged as Shepard had ever heard it. “I do! Do you?”

Wrex’s laugh was a low, dangerous rumble. “I like her. You find the best people, Shepard.”

She smiled. “Wrex.” To the primarch she gave a more formal nod. “Primarch. I, uh, hope you haven’t let Ms. Goto talk you into anything too crazy.”

Kasumi brought an affronted hand to her chest. “Crazy? Shep, I don’t do _crazy,_ I do smart. So I’ve figured out how to solve your problem. Or, at least how to get more of the information required _to_ solve your problem.”

“How?” Garrus asked. “I don’t think it’s the kind of information that can be stolen, Kasumi.”

“Oh, Garrus. _Everything_ can be stolen. And I have just the thing,” Kasumi said, in the tone she only used when she was planning something truly horrifying. Shepard had the sudden feeling _heels_ would be involved.  “We’re going to throw a party, of course.” Shepard’s stomach sank somewhere to the vicinity of feet that would shortly be once again stuffed into torturous shoes. “It took credits, Shep. Lots and _lots_ of credits. And you know how to bring rich people out of hiding?”

“Bait them with free champagne?” Shepard asked.

Kasumi grinned, and cocked a finger like an imaginary gun. “Got it in one.”

“I hate parties,” Shepard groaned, even as she had to acknowledge that, as plans went, it wasn’t the worst one she’d heard. The dread that came with the thought of forced finery slipped away, replaced by a kind of grim anticipation. Follow the credits, indeed. _All right, you bastards. You want to play? We’ll play. Come out, come out wherever you are._


	44. Falling Towers

Shepard was never particularly easy to read. Even he, who arguably knew her best of all, could be taken in by a smile at just the right—or wrong—moment, or a shrug that belied exhaustion, or the tone of her voice when she said, “Of course,” but actually meant, “Please, no.” Usually, he knew now, it was because in those moments she was actually fooling herself, and Shepard, when she believed in something, was effortlessly persuasive. She’d push until she fell to pieces that much harder to pick up and put back together again; she’d work until she fell asleep at her desk; she’d say _yes_ and _of course_ and _what do you need me to do_ until she was stretched thin enough to see through, without ever once complaining. He knew it. He just wasn’t planning on letting it happen _today._

As soon as he tamped down his own frustration at having been ambushed by yet another variable they hadn’t been anticipating, he turned his sharp gaze to Shepard. She didn’t give him much. Her lips smiled, all the way to her eyes. She’d always been fond of Kasumi; doubtless she was pleased to have yet another ally, and one so seemingly well-placed and trusted. But, though he doubted anyone else had the tools to see it—to recognize it—the set of her shoulders was uneasy, the way her fingers curled against her thighs, at the first joint only, and the paleness of her cheek beneath the pink she’d painted on earlier all spoke very plainly to him.

None of what it said was good. Necessity had driven them to action, but she wasn’t healed, and every moment she spent on her feet—to say nothing of every moment she spent navigating tricky political waters—taxed her. She was functioning on borrowed time, and neither of them were sure when it was going to run out. Garrus suspected about five minutes before she thought it would.

While Kasumi talked about plans, about parties and guest lists and the importance of presenting a convincing picture of confidence—the best cons had to look real, feel real, to the marks being conned—Shepard strolled to the table and sat. She flung an arm over the back of the empty chair next to her, imbuing the gesture with laid-back grace as though sitting were the most natural thing in the world. Her knees shook, though, until she crossed her legs to stop them, and her face remained pale beneath the makeup she wore.

“Loath as I am to admit it,” Shepard said, “the party is a good idea. Catching more flies with honey. It makes sense.” Her smile turned wry. “I trust you’ve already begun planning it, Kasumi?”

“Begun,” Kasumi scoffed. “Shep, you underestimate me.”

“Never,” Shepard said seriously. “You’re selling it as a welcome back victory celebration sort of thing? Hail the conquering hero? Or at least come drink on her tab?”

“Of course.”

“Tell me it’s not tomorrow.”

Kasumi fidgeted. “It’s…”

“ _Kasumi_.”

“Three days from now?”

Shepard snorted. “Is that a question? Or a statement of fact?”

“That’s the earliest it can happen. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I’ve had hunting down _supplies_.”

“Verisimilitude is important. Heaven forbid we go cheap on the balloons and streamers.”

Hackett cleared his throat and Garrus saw the subtle shift in Shepard as she turned her attention to the admiral. It was nothing so overt as a slipped smile or even a creased brow, but by the time she met his gaze, she was Commander Shepard again, and not Kasumi’s Shep, and lightyears away from Garrus’ Shepard. Her easy posture vanished as she sat forward, planting both feet on the ground, settling her elbows on her thighs and folding her hands together. It wasn’t submissive, but it wasn’t confrontational, either.

At least she knew _how_ to navigate those tricky political waters.

“Sir?”

“I have been exceedingly patient, Commander. I’d like that explanation you promised.”

“ _You’ve_ been patient?” Wrex rumbled, his growling tone heavy with warning. “You think we haven’t been? While the Alliance sits around scratching its quad and the rest of us wait to get back to homes we can’t even contact?”

“Waiting?” the admiral asked sharply. “That’s what you call it? Brawling in the streets? Krogan running amok at all hours of the day and night? _Waiting_?”

“The… restlessness of the krogan aside, Urdnot Wrex makes a point you cannot simply dismiss, Admiral,” Victus said. Garrus imagined the primarch must sound quite reasonable to the humans listening, but his subvocals vibrated with disappointment and frustration bordering on rage.

Shepard must’ve heard some of it, too; her eyes widened before narrowing. She opened her mouth to speak, but whatever she meant to say was lost to Admiral Hackett protesting, “And how many times must we repeat this same conversation? Complaining about the time it’s taking won’t speed things up. And now you’re undermining the work that _is_ being done on the relays by poaching my scientists?”

“Work?” Wrex scoffed. “We need progress, not work. We need results, not excuses. The longer I’m away from Tuchanka, the less likely I’ll be able to keep the clans united, and the more likely they’ll start looking for more things to fight—”

“Is that a threat?”

“Would it motivate you?” Wrex crossed his arms over his chest, taking a step closer to the admiral. Hackett didn’t back down, but he looked pathetically small next to the hulking krogan. 

Victus raised a hand and said, “The benefit of the doubt is a courtesy you’ve lost, Admiral. Daily reports have become weekly, and then only a line or two. I believe I speak for all the aliens trapped here when I say we have begun to feel very unwelcome. An insult added to the injury of not being able to leave, much as we might wish to.”

“Would you prefer reports repeating the lack of progress made the day before? No one alive understands how the relays work, not completely. Not enough to _rebuild_ one. That it is taking longer than anticipated is hardly a crime to be laid at my feet—”

“Bullshit,” Wrex said. “The damned Crucible went from blueprints to functional in months.”

“We had blueprints to work _from_. No one appears to have left the same for the Sol Relay, more’s the pity. Have you considered that other relays may be as damaged as Sol’s? Have you considered that even a mended relay here might have nowhere to send you _to_?”

“A necessary risk. Palaven will certainly be devoting all available resources to repairing any damage done to the Trebia Relay.”

“And my people are working as hard and as quickly as they can to resolve this issue, whether you choose to believe me or not.”

“They are not, in fact, _yours_ , Admiral,” Victus added. “Humanity is happy to take more than its fair share of both credit and resources now. The scientists ought to be working for us all. Being closed out of the loop and left in the cold as humanity tends its own does not engender trust.” 

“Humanity is suffering as much as the krogan, the turians. The Reapers devastated Earth—”

“At least you are on your planet to see it devastated,” Wrex added. “Buildings are going up everywhere, while the relay sits dormant. You telling me you need a bridge from one place to another more than I need to see my brood?”

“None of you are watching your supply of chiral-compatible food dwindle,” Victus added grimly. “With little hope of finding more.”

Hackett paced several steps, head bowed and shoulders as hunched as Garrus had ever seen them. He didn’t envy the man the weight, but Victus’ words struck a chord Garrus hadn’t truly considered. “The quarians—”

“Have one fully functional liveship, and the other is producing at very reduced capacities. The third stayed back and is as unavailable to us as Palaven. Even taking their losses and mine into consideration, the quarians cannot feed the entirety of the dextro population. We will starve, Admiral, without the ability to return to a system with edible food.”

No one else was looking at her, but Garrus saw the way Shepard flinched at the word _starve_ , and she sent him a slantwise glance so swift he’d have missed it if he hadn’t been watching her for telltale signs of flagging strength. He flashed her a questioning hand signal; she pretended not to see it.

“Everyone must ration,” Hackett said. “Earth was never producing enough for its own people as it was; now we are meant to supply food and water enough for the salarians, the asari?” He glowered at Wrex. “The _krogan_? We are all going to run out.”

“So you intend to hoard humanity’s wealth and last us out as we die?” Victus snapped, all pretense at civility gone and his tone now matching the story his subvocals had already been telling. “To emerge victorious from a war none of us were prepared to fight? A fine alliance indeed, Admiral.”

“ _Enough_!” Garrus snarled. Every face turned to him. Victus’ mandibles flicked, visibly irritated. Garrus decided he didn’t care; let the primarch reprimand him for overstepping his place. Not being a very good turian occasionally had its uses. 

Shepard said softly, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” She shook her head, turning her hands over and staring hard at her empty palms. Her disappointment was palpable and so painful Garrus felt pulled into the blast radius even though it wasn’t intended for him. “The sacrifices. They have to be worth it. It can’t be like this.”

“What do you propose, Commander?” Victus asked. “Or are we to question your loyalties as well? Is humanity’s gain more important—”

“That’s enough, turian,” Wrex growled. “You leave Shepard out of this.”

Subharmonics thrumming with unvoiced pain, Victus said, “My people are looking at their death made manifest, and it’s not even an enemy they can fight. Can you not understand that?”

“Better than you know. But that’s not on Shepard. She’ll find a way. She always does.”

“She’s _one person_ ,” Garrus snapped. “And she’s already solved the unsolvable for you—all of you—on more than one occasion. How about we solve _her_ problem for a damned change?”

Hackett’s brows curved down sharply, but Garrus didn’t miss the swift glance of apology he sent Shepard’s way. Even Wrex managed to look chagrined. Victus composed himself, straightening his shoulders and pulling his mandibles close. “My apologies, Commander. I—”

“You’re frustrated,” she said. “You’re upset. I don’t blame you, Primarch. Hell, I don’t blame any of you. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Especially when it’s a head used to a helmet. Dodging bullets is so much easier than calling the shots with a billion lives on the line.” She scrubbed her palms along her thighs before flattening her hands against the fabric of her trousers. “I’d like to believe the relays can be fixed,” she said. “But without a timeframe, we need to prepare for the worst case scenario. Our first priority is getting those liveships repaired; I’ll get Tali on it. No one starves. _No one._ The second is… fixing whatever _this_ is. We must present a unified front. This infighting reeks of dividing and conquering, and no one’s getting conquered on my watch.”

“Without the Council—” Hackett began.

“With all due respect, sir? The Council can be replaced. Preferably with people less intent on furthering the interests of their own people above all else.” Her jaw clenched. “I’m not rejoicing the loss of individual lives, but the Council as an entity had its time. I think this may be a chance to improve on a system that was broken. But that, too, is something for later. For now the people of the galaxy have us. We’re not letting them down.”

“The little we know enough about what happened to Shepard leads us to suspect involvement from groups with pro-human interests,” Garrus explained, crossing the room until he stood at Shepard’s side. Shepard threw him a grateful look masked merely as a smile. “Right now? Seems to me you’re playing into what they want.”

“And we’re going to great lengths to throw as many wrenches into those plans as possible,” Shepard said. “With the aim of drawing these potential seditionists out. But I need you to set aside your differences for a while longer. I need you to show up to this party looking like the best of friends. If they want us broken, we must be whole.”

She rubbed a hand along the back of her bare neck. Garrus frowned, turning sharp eyes on each of the room’s inhabitants in turn. Alenko looked thoughtful; his father considering. “That’s enough for today,” Garrus said. It wasn’t a question. “Assume you’re being surveilled. Send reports. Physical copies. Dad?”

“I’ll collect them and bring them to you tomorrow. Trust is a commodity none of us can afford at present.”

“And in the meantime,” Kasumi added, with just a slight edge to her usual bright tone, “remember the party’s black tie.”

#

“Thanks for that,” Shepard said softly, pitching her voice low enough that he had to strain to hear her. Not that anyone was listening. They were alone in the empty lobby, waiting for Alenko and the admiral to finish with the others. “I know it’s important; I know they need to get those things off their chests, but—”

“For once _your_ problems have to take precedence over theirs?” Garrus said, a little more harshly than he intended. She arched surprised brows, but at least the weariness of her smile said she agreed with him. Mostly. Though she’d never have admitted it.

“Sometimes I feel like a kindergarten teacher, presiding over playground squabbles. Wrex pulled Victus’ ponytail and Hackett won’t share his juicebox and—”

“And you know your metaphor lost me somewhere around _kindergarten_ , right?”

She chuckled. “I know there’s a way through this. I need to figure out the rules, and then I’ll be able to play the game, I just—”

“Need to rest,” Garrus insisted. “You promised the doctor you wouldn’t push yourself. I was there. I heard it. And here you are—”

“Pushing?”

He flicked his mandibles meaningfully and she sighed. Not, he noted, a _giving up_ sigh. It was definitely a _preparing to make a case_ sigh. “There’s so much I don’t know,” she protested. “And so much to do. You heard them, Garrus.” She lifted a hand to her head, pressing the palm against her brow. A headache, then. “We’ll just go back to the _Normandy_ for—”

“No,” he said.

“And then I promise I’ll—what?”

“No. And that’s an order.”

She tilted her head up slowly, eyes wide and brows lifted almost comically. She didn’t look angry, but he didn’t think the shock was entirely feigned. “Excuse me?”

“I seem to recall a whole conversation about you taking an advisory role but leaving the calls up to me.”

“I—are you pulling _rank_ on me, Vakarian?”

He smirked at her. “I could kidnap you, if you want. It’s been that kind of day. I just need a couple of skycars and some willing Spectres—”

She rolled her eyes and he subsisted with a chuckle. “Well, you did just yell at the collective leaders of the Alliance, the Hierarchy, and the krogan clans. I don’t know if I have it in me to take you on.”

“I didn’t yell.”

“Garrus,” she said, “you _yelled. Forcefully._ ” A ghost of a smile played about her lips. “Fine. I’ll rest.”

“Are you saying that so I’ll leave you alone to do work?”

She huffed a laugh. “You know me too well.” She paused, the silence one of anxious hesitation that made his plates itch.

“Can I—?” he began, just as she said, “Are you—?”

Her hand lifted, fingers hovering above the dog tags without touching them.

He said, “Can I stay with you?”

“I’d like that,” she replied, changing the course of her hand so it came, instead, to rest against his scarred mandible. Shepard smiled one of the smiles she reserved only for him, tender and proud and almost completely untouched by the worry he knew she carried like the weight of a mountain on her narrow shoulders. “I’d like that a lot.”


	45. Mixing Memory and Desire

When they reached the prefab unit she'd been assigned, Shepard shot Garrus a look that said, clear as words,  _give me a minute_. He nodded, a little reluctantly. He wasn't entirely sure what Shepard and Jack conferred about so often these days, but he wasn't blind and he wasn't stupid, and he was pretty sure she'd set the biotic as a kind of watchdog. Even at rest, even when smiling or mouthing off, Jack's posture remained wary, heightened. Vigilant. Garrus knew vigilance intimately; it was as familiar to him as the kick of a Mantis or the endlessly scrolling information of his visor.

He couldn't quite bring himself to ask why, or what, exactly, Jack was meant to be watching for. Hell, he was pretty sure he didn't want the answer, even if Shepard were willing to give him one straight. Even if either of them were.

He wasn't Shepard's keeper, after all. And he wasn't her jailer. Light glinted off the dog tags hanging around her neck, a subtle reminder, a promise. To her, mostly, but for himself as well. If he trusted her with those—and he did—he had to trust her with this, too. Jack shot him a look halfway between hello and  _fuck off_ , business as usual, and he nodded a brief greeting before turning away.

While the women spoke in low voices and Alenko waited in the commandeered cab to give Jack a ride once she was ready to leave, Garrus walked the perimeter of the prefab's lot, his omni-tool activated and his most refined scanning program running at full strength. Here, at least, the disruption to whatever surveillance Shepard—they—might be under was acceptable. Expected, even. They were both known to be paranoid about unauthorized tech; it would have seemed stranger to an informed observer to leave the surveillance devices operational.

Garrus was polite about deactivating the standard Alliance-issue security camera; less so with the two bugs carrying the distinctive markers of media sources, though Spirits only knew how any of them were managing to beg, borrow, or steal (or pay for) packets, what with comm traffic so restricted. Not his concern, except to be aware the media was, as always, able to make a nuisance of itself should the opportunity arise. A final bug he recognized as the same kind Hackett's car had carried, and though he ran several diagnostics, the best he could discover was that it was transmitting, but not where, or to whom. He sighed before overloading its mysterious little circuits and sending it to a sparking and no longer invasive death. Better safe than sorry, as Shepard would say. He had half a mind to keep the pieces and jam them down the gullet of whomever'd placed the bug in the first place, once that perpetrator was found.

Garrus allowed himself a moment—just a moment—to indulge in a particularly gruesome revenge fantasy. Broken bugs down the throat would be the  _least_  of what Garrus imagined for Shepard's kidnapping, brainwashing tormentors. Movement caught the edge of his peripheral vision, and he saw Shepard frown at him, faintly, as though somehow she'd caught the tenor of his vengeful thoughts even from a distance. He sent her a brief wave and went back to work.

It was quiet. Eerily quiet, after the constant low hum of the  _Normandy_. A bird chirped, hopping from branch to branch, following him as he worked. Shepard's unit was still within Alliance-patrolled territory, but only just. The cool shade and overgrown greenery bore little resemblance to the flat, packed-earth greyness of the main encampment. He told himself they'd given her space so far from the rest of the Alliance personnel because they were aiming to respect her privacy, but Archangel—the paranoid bastard—helpfully pointed out how difficult their current location would be to fortify and defend, should the need arise. And no one would be close enough to hear them scream. Garrus shuddered, and ran his scanner over the window frame again for good measure. At least it wasn't filled with explosive filaments. And it only opened from the inside.

His rounds—and his anxiety—occupied him enough that he missed Shepard slipping silently behind him. He didn't flinch when she laid a gentle hand on the forearm not lit up by the omni-tool display. Her smile—half-amused, half-pleased-with-herself-smirk—said she knew very well how close he'd come to jumping out of his plates.

"Taking your life in your hands," he said, a little quiet laughter rumbling deep in his subharmonics.

"Worth it," she replied, "to see your face do that thing."

Affronted, he drew back, but not quite enough to dislodge her hand. "My face does not do a  _thing_."

The smirk intensified. "Oh, it does a thing. Your mandibles twitch, and your nose quivers and then you go so stony and stoic I know I completely caught you off-guard." She bumped a shoulder against him lightly. "You ever see a cat fall unexpectedly and then pretend it meant to do it all along? That's exactly the kind of thing you do."

He shook his head and her smirk broadened into a grin, bright and almost easy. A pang of pain thrummed in his chest as he tried to remember the last time he'd seen her smile so effortlessly, and he wondered if this, too, showed on his face. He hoped not. He didn't want to be the reason her hard-earned joy fled. Not after everything else.

When her smile remained firmly in place, he flared his mandibles, all mock indignation. "My nose doesn't quiver."

"It does."

"It doesn't."

"It  _wiggles_."

He glowered good-naturedly. "No way."

"You want to bet?" she teased. "Because I will make it my top priority to get vid proof the next time I'm wearing  _my_  visor. No matter what it takes."

He snorted, probably making his nose wiggle, and she laughed her obvious triumph. For once, he let her have it without protest or cocky comeback. Then she waved a hand in the general direction of the prefab, as if simply inviting him inside. At the end of the gesture she used the signal for  _all clear?_ and he nodded, letting his omni-tool dim and flicker out. Inside, they repeated the process in silence, scanning and sweeping. Shepard disabled a bug in the door's opening mechanism—a benign recorder to keep track of the biometrics of any visitors—and Garrus caught another cleverly disguised by the wiring of the overhead light. Much less benign, and as untraceable as the mystery device outdoors had been.

While Shepard dealt with the console, Garrus glanced around the little building, taking stock. He found himself gratified that, in spite of its more remote location, it was not all that different from the grey quarters he'd been given those months that felt like years ago. Hero or no hero, they'd assigned her standard-issue gear; something someone must have known her well enough to realize she'd appreciate more than whatever passed for luxury now.

The bed was big enough for two, though, and the wardrobe was double the size his had been. Family quarters, he realized. He glanced at Shepard, but she didn't look up. Her face was bathed in the glow of console-light, rendering shadows deeper and the crease of concentration more severe. She reached up as if to push her hand through her hair and frowned when it met the resistance of being pulled back. He already missed the smile of outdoors, all too fleeting. All too fragile.

Dying sunlight fell through the open curtains, turning the bedlinen pink. Someone had picked a handful of flowers and put them in a cup on the edge of the desk. He tried to imagine them as Jack's touch and failed completely. Garrus scanned their deceptive cheerfulness for tech, and found none, though he did earn an amused eyebrow from Shepard, which was, at the very least, a little closer to the missing smile.

"I trust the hydrangeas aren't spying on us?"

"They could be."

Her other eyebrow arched to join the first, lending her an even more skeptical air. "And are they?"

His mandibles flicked into a smile. "Yeah. There's a T86 Filament listening device in the pink ones."

She rolled her eyes, but without rancor. Her nose definitely wiggled. "Liar. I scanned the flowers when you were doing the bedside table."

He chuckled. "So you  _were_  afraid the flowers were spying."

She shrugged one shoulder. "Hell, Garrus, I'm afraid everything's spying." Lifting her omni-tool arm, her amusement turned distinctly satisfied. "Though not for long."

"The room's clear. Plants included."

"I, uh, need a few minutes with the console."

He fixed her with a steady, unblinking gaze. She had the grace to squirm. "I'm not working," she insisted, not quite meeting his eyes.

Leaning against the wall, he crossed his arms over his chest, letting his expression echo her earlier skepticism. "Never known you to take this long to disable a little tech, Shepard. Rusty? Want to let a master work? Show you how it's done?"

The gesture she flipped him then was one he couldn't have duplicated, not having enough fingers, but he was well aware of the meaning. He smirked, and having won a round of his own, sauntered to the other side of the room, dropping, after only a moment's hesitation, onto the end of the bed. Still hard, still designed for human bone structure, the curve of human spines. He sighed. At the console, Shepard typed rapidly, paused to look thoughtfully at the ceiling, and bent to type again. She shook her head, and bit down on her bottom lip. He watched as the amusement drained from her, every moment of worry stealing a bit of her warmth, leaving her pale and strained, the lines around her eyes more stark and the hunch of her shoulders more tense.

"Shepard," he said.

She glanced up at him, and he could tell from the narrowness of her eyes and the set of her jaw she'd been somewhere else entirely. He wasn't sure he wanted to know where. Nowhere good. Her shoulders remained hitched up around her ears; he didn't think she even noticed.

"I had a message from Liara."

He tilted his head, more than mildly disapproving. "And that's not work?"

"She's a friend. It's… a friendly correspondence."

"Right," he drawled. "And I might believe that if  _your_ face wasn't doing that thing  _it_  does. When you're working. And you're not supposed to be."

She touched her cheek with tentative fingers, but the frown didn't ease. If anything, her expression grew more dark, more guarded.

"Shepard, please," he said, lowering his voice until even she couldn't miss the pleading undertone and patting the seat beside him. "Sit with me."

"Or else?"

He tilted his head in confusion, and Shepard relented, laughing under her breath as she crossed the room. He didn't think she was exaggerating the sigh as she sank down next to him, and she paused only a moment before taking it a step further and leaning against his shoulder. Her hand reached up, fingertips ghosting over the dog tags before falling back into her lap. He immediately reached for her, curling his fingers around hers. She was cold. "You're tired," he said.

"I'm always tired." Her smile turned sickly, and her fingers twitched in his, not quite pulling away, but more tense than he'd like. "I'd make the old 'I'll sleep when I'm dead' joke, but suddenly it's even less funny than it used to be."

"Shepard."

Her brow spasmed and she shook her head briefly. "I know. Sorry. It's just… I thought—I don't know what I thought. Liara sounded so upset."

"I don't trust her sources. She knew too much, too quickly."

"She's not a traitor."

It took a great deal of effort not to jerk away, but he didn't want to disturb her rest against him. "I didn't say she was."

Shepard sighed again, and he rested his free hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. A little of her tension drained away beneath his touch. "Sorry," she murmured, gazing down at their joined hands. "I'm…"

"Edgy?" he supplied, when she left the word lingering too long. "Pissed off? Hell. Scared?"

"Uneasy," Shepard said softly. He choked on the memory of her eyes gazing blankly at him as her lips formed the words  _the turian's making me uneasy_. She inhaled deeply, and a little more of the tension eased when she exhaled. "The source of Liara's intel is mostly likely part of this web of information and misinformation. I don't like keeping her out of the loop, but—"

"But for now we assume the Shadow Broker's compromised. So we give her only what we don't mind others seeing."

"What isn't compromised?" she muttered, with uncharacteristic pessimism. It was infinitely more troubling coming from her. Something of his dismay must've shown; she shrugged a half-hearted apology. "It's not just—that meeting was a mess. Worse than I anticipated, and my expectations were low. I didn't expect the galaxy to right itself in the blink of an eye, but I hoped… I hoped it wouldn't be like this. That they'd learn, I guess. That they wouldn't need me to be the… glue. I thought they'd be able to—hell, I thought they'd  _have_  to—well."

He couldn't have said if it was her words, or the tone of her voice as she spoke them, or even the shift of her muscles beneath the softness of her face, but  _something_  hit him like a solid punch thrown by an expert arm. His breath caught and he closed his eyes, only to be immediately haunted by the memory of cold rain and her hand touching his cheek and her eyes on his, saying what her words wouldn't. He'd known, though. Even though the hideous pain, the horror of his own body cooking within that ill-fated armor, the crushing certainty that she was going to make the rest of the push without him at her six, he'd known. He couldn't help knowing. It was the way her voice broke on the words  _no matter what happens here_. It was the way she pressed her palm against his mandible just as much as he leaned into her. It was the beam glowing behind her, too bright to be natural, and the thrum of the anxious  _Normandy_  beneath his feet. Her  _you know I love you; I always will_  had been a goodbye even more final than the one spoken earlier. He just hadn't let himself believe it. Her.

"You knew you weren't coming back."

It wasn't a question. He wanted to take the words back as soon as he spoke them, but instead he watched them fly as unerring as bullets— _scoped and dropped, oh Spirits_ —to strike her. The force of them shifted her sideways. She pulled away from his hands and her face drained of color. Even her eyes looked paler, almost all the green leeched from the grey beneath the startled, wounded curve of her brows. Her lips parted instantly; he saw them form a protest and he saw her swallow the words before giving voice to them. Her throat worked hard to do it. He saw that, too. One hard gulp. Two. Three.

"I'm—I shouldn't have—" His own throat felt constricted, his subvocals strained and unhappy as he fought to contain the damage, stanch the blood loss.

She pressed the cool fingertips of one hand to his mouth, soft but insistent. Her eyes were moist, shimmering in the dimming light. "I didn't think that beam was going to oblige me with a return trip." Then she smiled at him, transforming the entire landscape of her face.  _I love you, Garrus Vakarian._  Not fragile at all, not fleeting. "I—I wanted it to. You get that, right? But if the war was ruthless calculus, my life was only one variable in the equation, and well worth the sacrifice, if it came down to it. You can't tell me you wouldn't have done the same, Garrus, if our roles had been reversed." She leaned close, and, so soft the words were almost breath without voice at all, she said, "You were with me anyway. Until the end. Just like old times. Always."

He lifted a hand to cup her face, a subtle echo—and subtle  _rejection_ —of the goodbye that ended up not being as final as either of them dreaded, and this time she was the one to lean, pressing her cheek against his palm. He stroked his thumb along her cheekbone, where the last of the burn scars they'd found her with was swiftly disappearing beneath the smoothness of new skin. He could hardly see them at all anymore; they were merely a faint shine against the velvet of her profile. His hand slid down, following the slender line of her neck, before reaching around to cradle the back of her skull.

"I wish I'd found you sooner," he said, and even he was uncertain which  _finding_  he meant.

"Patience is a virtue," she replied, the thickness in her voice belying the apparent lightness of her words. "Or so they say."

"Well," he said, "we're both snipers."

"I  _am_  three headshots ahead of you," she said.

_Just like old times._ He chuckled. "Not possible."

"Two husks and a maurauder, right at the very end.  _Pistol_ headshots. You're lucky I'm not making you count them doubl—"

He silenced her the best way he knew how, and was rewarded with a low groan of approval.  _Draw. We both win._  Her tongue darted out to trace the edge of his mouth, catching the sensitive underside of the plating there, even as her hand gripped the edge of his armored cowl, holding tight. He dragged his mouth away from hers, but only to lavish attention on the skin left bare above the collar of her jacket. She closed what little distance had remained between them, her warm body soft and pliant against the immovable wall of his armor. His growl as he reached for the seals was mixed of equal parts frustration and desire, but before he could free himself, Shepard splayed a halting hand against his chest and pulled back.

"Are you—?" A flicker of distress crossed her features, swiftly hidden away again, and she ducked her head. He hooked a crooked finger under her chin and lifted her face. Her skin was flushed. Equal parts frustration and desire, he decided. With his other hand, he reached up and removed his visor, tossing it behind him onto the pillows without looking. She didn't pull away, but her teeth worried at her bottom lip. It took a moment for him to adjust to the world without a scrolling interface giving him hints, but then it was only here, and only her, her eyes large and searching, her skin incomparably soft where his finger touched her. He ran the flat of his hand against her pulled-back hair, but when she reached up to pull the pins loose, he nudged her fingers away and did it himself. The fastenings were small and tricky and evidently designed for users with more fingers than he had at his disposal, but she sighed contentedly as he loosened her hair from its constrictive style and it was worth the irritation of the pins to see a little more of her tension replaced by relief.

When he was finished, her hair fell in a soft cloud around her face, wavier for having been pulled up in its knot for so long. It smelled of her soap, of her. He inhaled as he dipped his brow to touch hers, and felt the subtle shudder of her response, heard the catch of her breath.

"Let me tell you something true," he said. He didn't move away from her; he felt the weight of her nod pressed against his forehead. "This isn't a bandage. Not anymore. Not for me. Not after today."

"Garrus," she replied, not bothering to mask her worry, her fear, "nothing's changed. Not really. We still can't be certain—"

"I don't know what they did to you. I don't know why. But I know what I saw today; I know who you are. I'm… Spirits, Shepard, I'm sorry I didn't recognize it sooner. Recognize  _you_  sooner. I let them steal more time than I should have. They can't have any more." He tapped her dog tags with the tip of a talon; they clinked together. "That's what these mean."

He couldn't have said if she moved first, or he did, or if they managed—as they so often did on the battlefield—to choreograph themselves perfectly, but her mouth was on his and her arm was around his neck and his around her waist. He tugged—she pressed—and her legs straddled his hips with such effortless ease he couldn't bring himself to swallow the groan of pleasure, of familiarity, of homecoming. His hands scrabbled over the buttons of her uniform jacket; hers reached with unerring accuracy for the clasps of his armor.

And her smile against his mouth felt like a gift he was, for the first time in weeks, entirely unafraid to unwrap.


	46. Shadow At Morning

The sunlight falling through curtains neither of them had remembered to draw shut the evening before woke Shepard slowly. The warmth on her cheeks was alien, and sunshine made a nice change from racing stars and the memory of breathless endings. She'd never died in the sun. There was something to be said for that.

For the first time in weeks, the ache in her body was a pleasant one. The third round, sleepy bodies moving together in the full dark after a couple of hours sleep, had, perhaps, been pushing the current limits of her endurance, but after so much longing and so much  _missing_  and so much fearing it was intimacy she'd never again experience, she'd only relaxed and told her bones to behave. And they had. She'd slept afterward, deep and dreamless, for what felt like the first time in weeks. No ghosts in white dresses. No wide-eyed children. No rain.

Sleep now fled, Shepard remained curled on her side, enjoying the warmth of the turian at her back, the familiar weight of his arm heavy where it lay draped across her waist. She smiled even as she kept her breathing soft and easy and regular. Garrus needed the rest. Even without all the dire warnings from Solana and Dr. Chakwas, Shepard could see the weariness in him, could see the toll it was taking. She wasn't the only one who worked too hard. Or worried too much. Or slept too little.

She tilted her chin just enough to look down at Garrus' arm. The marked difference between Garrus in armor and out of it still took her aback. His forearm was so slender, the tapered wrist almost delicate. If she'd never seen him take down Jacob or James in three moves or less in the sparring ring, she wouldn't have believed such slim limbs capable of it. Still, now that she wasn't distracted, she couldn't help noticing how much thinner he was than he'd been before. Victus' words about reduced dextro food supply came back to her then, harsh and haunting, and she tensed for the space of a heartbeat, a breath, as a wave of determination washed over her.  _Not on my watch._

Garrus didn't wake, but his long fingers twitched slightly against the bare flesh of her stomach, the dulled tips of his talons ticklish against the sensitive skin. She inhaled slowly, ignoring the inappropriate giggle building in her belly and pushing worry away. Worry wouldn't change anything; worry wouldn't  _help._  Tali could get her a solid report on the producing capacity of the remaining liveship, and even if that food wasn't enough to sustain both the quarian and turian populations, she was certain life-sustaining proteins could be synthesized in the right lab conditions. The Reapers couldn't have taken out all of them; she'd have Traynor run down a list of potential locations later. She missed EDI.

Garrus mumbled in his sleep, not awake enough for words, but the quelling note of  _go back to sleep_  was all too clear, and she realized rather belatedly how tense she'd let herself become.

Shepard obeyed his sleepy protest and closed her eyes. Here, now, in the moment between yesterday and today, she could pretend everything was as simple as kisses and banter and the sweet ache of loving. No plots or conspiracies or questions without answers. No responsibilities. No life or death decisions hanging on her judgment. Just them. Just this.

A pang of remorse nearly drove her from her comfortable cocoon of warmth. So much to do. So little time. Even apart from figuring out how to utilize strained resources fairly, the looming sword of Damocles—who took her; why; was she defying their plans or, worse, playing into them?—wasn't going to vanish because she wanted it to. Kasumi's party was a good lure, but it was so much easier to fish when one knew what to angle for. Perhaps  _Commander Shepard_  might be permitted a tour of the Alliance facilities, a few unobtrusive questions, a little covert infiltration. Perhaps—

"You're working," Garrus murmured against the nape of her neck, nuzzling into the fall of her hair. His voice was rough, still half-asleep, and the thrum of his subharmonics short-circuited some thinking part of her brain and sent a flood of warmth into her belly.

"I'm not."

He wrapped his arm tightly around her, pulling her back completely flush with his chest and the ridge of his cowl. Amongst other things. She groaned as she settled against him, and had to admit his tactics were sound. She'd completely lost her earlier train of thought, and somehow no matter how hard she tried to return to it, an insistent turian dragging his talented tongue along every sensitive inch of her jawline proved a highly potent distraction.

When he and his tongue reached her ear, he lowered his voice and growled, "You're  _lying_."

She turned in his arms, flattening herself against him, hooking her thigh over his. She rolled her hips once, agonizingly slowly, pulling an answering moan from him. His eyes fluttered shut, flat nose twitching. "Sorry," she whispered, shifting until the soft flesh of her inner thigh brushed the plate-bare hide of his waist. More than his nose twitched, then. "Let me make it up to you?"

"If you—ahh, Spirits, Shepard—if you insist."

"Oh," she replied, leaving a teasing trail of kisses down the side of his neck, and following the last with a delicate nip that made him shiver beneath her, "I do."

The door chimed. Shepard froze so abruptly she would have toppled off him if he hadn't reached up and held tight to her hips.

"You have got to be kidding me," Garrus muttered, shooting a dark glare over her shoulder toward the offending door and whomever stood behind it.

"We could just pretend we're not—oh God. Do you think it's your  _dad_? Wasn't he going to bring those reports?"

Garrus' look of complete and utter mortification was even funnier than his startled-and-trying-not-to-be face. She resolved to try and capture it sometime, too, if only for use as future blackmail. She had a feeling Vega would part with a fish tank VI's worth of credits to see it. She pressed a kiss to his nose and rolled off him as the door chimed again. "Coming," she called. Garrus fixed her with a look somehow wounded, skeptical, and wry all at the same time, and her cheeks burned. "Funny," she added, poking him. "Where the hell is my underwear?"

Garrus pushed himself upright and rolled his neck and his shoulders. He didn't complain, but she recognized the stiffness—her blush turned up a degree or three—she recognized the  _aftereffects_  of an uncomfortable bed. Come hell or high water, she was determined to find a sleeping arrangement better able to suit them both. She laid a hand gently on the back of his neck as she passed, and he turned into the touch, his mandibles flicking appreciatively.

She rifled through the duffel she'd had brought from the  _Normandy_ and dressed quickly in her casual fatigues. Garrus sighed as he hunted down the fallen pieces of his armor—she had no recollection of sending his greaves to opposite sides of the room—but he was ready by the time she opened the door.

Kaius Vakarian stood on the other side, wearing his civilian garb like it was a C-Sec uniform, and carrying an armload of datapads. He looked up from the topmost as the door opened, and his expression betrayed nothing, though she was sure she looked distinctly unkempt, uniform and roughly pulled-back hair notwithstanding.

"Forgive me," he said, and to his credit neither his voice nor his subharmonics seemed to be sarcastic. "I've woken you."

"Not at all," Shepard said, stepping backward, and inviting him in with a wave. "We were up."

Garrus made a sound somewhere between coughing and choking, and she bit her tongue to keep from laughing. The flush in her cheeks remained on the distinctly hot side. Garrus' answering glare, however, was cool and said he hadn't missed her double entendre. If Kaius picked up on any of this, his poker face was too good to reveal it. Somehow she suspected he wasn't missing much.

"I did attempt to send a message, but the traffic is unreliable at best."

Shepard flicked a glance at the console, where a green light blinked languidly. "Ah. Yes. Just about to get to that. Still. You're here now, and daylight's burning."

"Indeed," he replied evenly, the plates of his face rearranging into an expression of faint query. "An… odd idiom."

"Oh, she has much stranger ones," Garrus said, rifling through the desk drawers until he came up with a pair of ration bars. He tossed the levo one to Shepard, and she snatched it out of the air one-handed, grinning at the ease of the movement. Her collarbone didn't even ache anymore, and the pain in her ribs was more memory than reality. Maybe she wasn't quite ready for the kick of a Black Widow, but provided she didn't fall headfirst down a flight of stairs—or submit to the inevitable pressure to wear heels to Kasumi's party—she could almost imagine a full return to health was just around the corner. "Dad?"

Kaius shook his head, but indicated they should eat as he placed his burden of datapads on the end of the desk and began sorting them into piles. "I spoke with your sister before I came here," he said to Garrus. When he turned to Shepard, she recognized the tilt of his head and angle of his mandibles as surprise. Mixed, perhaps, with relief and some gratitude. "Your doctor's work is exceptional. She believes Solana will regain nearly her full range of motion, given enough physical therapy. I confess I would not have thought a physician on a human vessel quite so facile with anatomy different than the soldiers she trained to heal."

Shepard swallowed her bland mouthful of required calories. The dry food caught in her throat. Funny. It had been a long time since she revisited the horror of that afternoon after Omega, the stink of turian blood in her nostrils no matter how many times she forced herself under the spray of a too-hot shower. "She's had plenty of practice."

Kaius turned his query on Garrus, whose brow twitched. "It's not nearly as bad as she'd have you think. I'm very good at not getting hit."

"You're better now. Plenty of practice there, too." Her attempt at pulling the conversation back from her darker memories fell short as her gaze slid past the mostly-healed scars on his face, and as she tried very hard not to think about the mostly-healed scars left from the burns he'd picked up on that final push. Without the added protection of his plates and sturdier hide, she was pretty sure those injuries would have been fatal. She forced her cheeks to pull into a smile that neither turian seemed inclined to believe. Their expressions were so identically skeptical it almost made her smile for real. She sighed.  _Here. Now. The scars are old; the injuries healed._  "You have to admit, what you lack in frequency, you make up for in severity. I think I liked it better when we were chasing Saren and you were only taking stray bullets. At least they just knocked your shields out. Mostly. And hey, you remembered how to use cover eventually."

Garrus grimaced and ducked his head. "Return to military life was, uh, something of an adjustment. The occasional armed perp or bar brawl wasn't adequate preparation for the hordes of enemies you kept running into headlong, Shepard."

"At least Dr. Michel was always willing to oblige us with more medi-gel. Especially when it was for you." Her smile was more genuine this time, fonder. "But your father's not here to hear us recount old war stories, I think."

Garrus smiled a faint smile of his own. "You mean you want to change the subject before I get a chance to retaliate."

"You know, the sushi restaurant was  _not_ my fault."

"I was thinking more about your driving. Talk about your near-death experiences. Cover couldn't save me from that one."

She wrinkled her nose and took another delicate bite of her breakfast, chewing determinedly. When she swallowed, she said, "The Mako's steering mechanism never worked quite right."

Garrus jabbed his ration bar in her direction, shaking his head. "You and I both know the Mako was the best-maintained vehicle in the Alliance fleet." His mandibles flicked. "Besides, if it was only the Mako's steering, how do you explain the Hammerhead?"

She widened her eyes in feigned horror. "You promised you'd never bring that up. Ever. Again."

"Lava, Shepard. So much lava. And all those canyons. You hit  _every_  wall. Every one. It's really a miracle we aren't buried under the side of a mountain somewhere."

"I defy you to do better."

Garrus laughed. "Easy for you to say now that we no longer have a Hammerhead at our disposal. I think you may be forgetting how often I begged you to let me drive. Pleaded, even."

"As I recall," Kaius said, reminding them of his silent, observing presence, "your early forays into driving more often than not ended with your mother having to rescue you from stalls in the middle of traffic."

"I was a kid," Garrus protested. "And I was  _learning._ Shepard made a krogan vomit. On more than one occasion."

She made a face over the remainder of her rations and Garrus canted his head in apology, though not without a triumphant chuckle.

"These are the reports you promised?" Shepard asked, nodding at the datapads.

"I thought it best to try and catch you alone," Kaius began. "I trust you've secured the room?"

"Right down to the flowers," Shepard said. On his startled look, she added, "They weren't bugged."

He nodded. "Very good. Yes. These are the most up to date reports at our disposal. I'm afraid they read more like requisition lists interspersed with personal grievances, but they should give you some indication where things stand for the various races encamped here." He rifled through the pile, and plucked out a datapad, handing it to Shepard in the same motion. "Admiral Hackett and I spoke at some length after the meeting yesterday. He is, as you suspected he would be, justifiably concerned about the way his organization is hemorrhaging information. These are lists of personnel, and their various levels of security clearance. I cannot yet pinpoint who amongst them has a second agenda, but I feel certain one of them must answer to a power other than your admiral's. Unfortunately, with so much upheaval in the ranks security has grown somewhat lax."

"Anyone in the right uniform was allowed access to the QEC?" Shepard guessed. "More afraid of the aliens on their soil than the humans wearing blue?"

Kaius nodded, frowning.

Garrus stood at her shoulder as she scanned the list of names. Most were unfamiliar. A few of the  _Normandy_  crew—Westmoreland, Vega, Campbell—were serving on the admiral's staff now, but theirs weren't the name that stood out. Shepard sucked in an audible inhale, and Garrus laid a steadying hand on her lower back.

"You're sure about this?" Shepard asked, not bothering to mask the sharpness of her tone. "This is definitely an accurate list?"

"What is it, Shepard?" Garrus stepped to the side, his hand still hovering just at her back. "You look…"

"Like I've seen a ghost?" She swallowed hard and shook her head. "Yeah. That's… hell, it could be someone with the same name. It just… it's a little too coincidental."

"Someone you'd like investigated?"

"Looked into. Discreetly. Nicholas Callahan. He was never the sharpest tool in the shed, so he'd be a pawn rather than a player, but I don't want to scare him off. And I want to make sure he's on duty the night of Kasumi's party; I'll talk to the admiral about it. Where he is, his parents are sure to be lurking." She pushed a hand through her hair, doing further damage to her haphazard knot. She couldn't quite bring herself to care. "Fifteen years later. Unbelievable."

"Nicholas Callahan?" Garrus asked. "Fifteen years later? I'm not sure I'm getting this, Shepard."

"No, you wouldn't," Shepard snapped. She closed her hands into impotent fists and shook her head before flattening her palms against her thighs once more. "Sorry. I—I don't think I've ever talked about the years between Mindoir and my enlistment. To you."  _To anyone._

Garrus pulled his mandibles tight to his cheeks in obvious concern, and the tips of his talons dipped to brush her back, but he didn't press. Didn't ask. She could've kissed him for it. Instead, she explained, "According to the law, I wasn't old enough to be on my own. Before I was processed into a group home, the Callahans offered to take me in. Insisted, really. I wasn't in much of a state to protest. They were touched by my plight. Or something." The words tasted bitter on her tongue, and came laced with memories of a white room in a white house.  _You_ _'re practically part of the family._  Like hell. A white dress. A different party. _I danced until dawn. I couldn_ _'t breathe._

No. She'd escaped before that could happen. She'd spent her eighteenth birthday looking over her shoulder while she waited in the local Alliance enlistment office, certain one of the Callahans' burly bodyguards would arrive at any moment and drag her off before she could protest. Or make a clean getaway. "We should look into Moira and Vincent, too. They're cockroaches. If anyone survived, they would. If anyone profited, they  _certainly_  would."

"Could they—" Garrus' voice cracked and he covered the break with a cough before beginning again. "Are they possible suspects?"

"On their own? I doubt it," Shepard insisted, pacing the short length of the prefab. She glanced, uncomprehending, at the mussed up sheets of the bed. Their comfortable warmth seemed an eternity ago. "Would've required too much initiative. But they were always richer than God. Funding? Funding they could have done." She gnawed on the inside of her bottom lip, using the pain to focus. "We need to figure out if they have links to Terra Firma, to Cerberus, to anyone Brooks mentioned, hell, to Brooks herself. They'll be buried, though, if they exist. The Callahans were always very carefully apolitical. Publicly, anyway."

Garrus and his father conferred over their notes while Shepard ostensibly read a report Major Kirrahe had sent from the salarians, though she hardly took in one word of every dozen. At least now, she thought, she had some idea what kind of fish she wanted to use Kasumi's party to catch. Rich fish. Fish from a different life. Fish she'd never wanted to think about again. She shivered. When Garrus lifted his eyes, she didn't try to hide her uneasiness. His smile, she knew, was meant to be bolstering. She couldn't give him one in return without lying. His nod said he understood. She sneezed once, and rubbed her nose.

Moving to the window, she flung it open. The hydrangeas had hardly any scent at all. Their presence certainly couldn't account for why she felt inexplicably haunted by the scent of roses.


	47. A Welcome of Indifference

Time was a funny thing, Shepard mused as she let herself into the darkened prefab. Sometimes time moved exceptionally slowly. The last moments she'd spent with Anderson up on the Citadel had seemed an eternity marked by heartbeats and the certainty of endings. Instead of returning to the natural order of sand running through an hourglass, everything since had felt much more like that timepiece was broken and she left scrabbling desperately to save some handful of it for herself.

On Earth, time raced. The days disappeared, caught up in conversations and meetings, interviews and introductions. Formalities on the surface, but every one weightier than the last. Each night she fell into bed and slept the dreamless sleep of the exhausted, comforted by the solid warmth of Garrus beside her. Each morning she woke imagining rain, only to find the Vancouver sun still improbably shining.

And then it was three days later, and the party loomed, and Shepard, having spent all her time distracted by problems and solutions and smiling for cameras that needed her to smile and saying, "We're going to get through this," because hers was a voice that could say such things and maybe be believed, felt woefully unprepared.

Without Garrus in it, the prefab felt empty in a way that had nothing to do with a missing physical presence, and even knowing the absence was merely temporary couldn't soothe the prickle of uneasiness racing down her spine. She glanced at the bed, taking in the new turian pillow (acquired after taking three hours out of an otherwise packed schedule, because dammit, some things were more important than playing kindergarten teacher), still dented from his head and creased by the memory of his fringe. Proof of him. A half-full glass of water on his bedside table. His armor in one corner, next to a new set meant to replace the one she'd lost. She didn't like it. The red stripe wasn't the right shade, and the underlying pattern was all wrong. The whole thing was too bulky. She ignored it, the way she'd been ignoring it for the two days since it materialized. No weapons littered any of the surfaces, but that was deliberate; neither of them was entirely easy with the idea of her armed. Not until they had some answers; not until they figured out where memory loss and memory tampering and memory alteration ended and she began; not until they found Miranda. Or figured out what, exactly, Miranda had done. She scrubbed her palm against the center of her forehead and pleaded with the burgeoning headache to leave her alone, today of all days. It didn't oblige.

Shepard scowled down at her left arm. Not that being armed mattered, when it came down to it. Gun or no gun, she still had an omni-tool, and she knew a dozen ways to take out hostiles even without uploading any of her more specialized programs. A creative thinker could do a hell of a lot of damage with a standard-issue Bluewire, and she was nothing if not creative.

She ran her fingertips through the pile of fallen petals lying heaped around the dying bouquet of hydrangeas. The faint scent of decay wafted up to her, and she pulled her hand back as if stung. A pair of datapads lay on the desk where they'd left them the night before, when work was finally abandoned in favor of sleep. Ignoring these, too, she reached instead for one of the ration bars. Nerves or no nerves, champagne on an empty stomach was never a good idea. Neither was interrogation. Especially when it was meant to be subtle.

#

Shepard was doing up the last of her dress uniform's jacket buttons, preparing herself to walk the gauntlet, when Kasumi sauntered into the prefab as if she'd been invited, a dress bag flung over one arm and what looked to be a makeup case dangling from her other hand. She froze when she saw Shepard, her inhale sharp and unimpressed. "Shep.  _No._ "

"No yourself," Shepard agreed, jerking her chin in the direction of the dreaded garment bag before straightening her collar. Firmly. "And before you complain, dress uniform is perfectly acceptable black-tie equivalent."

"Says the rulebook, maybe," Kasumi said, cocking a hip and taking Shepard in with a skeptical head tilt. Her nose wrinkled, as if even the sight of the uniform was insulting multiple senses. Shepard refused to let the censure cow her, straightening her shoulders defiantly. "But it's so… uninspired."

"I don't want to be inspired. I want to blend in." Shepard tilted a half-smile Kasumi's way. "Come on. Of all people, you've got to be the one who understands that."

Kasumi lifted her shoulders. "Understand? Sure. Think you can get away with it? No way." Her return smile was just as wry. "Sorry to be the one to break it to you, Shep, but your days of blending in are over. You're the best savior of the galaxy in the business  _and_  the most famous, I'm afraid."

"You're funny."

"Mmm," Kasumi murmured. "I'm honest." Then she grinned. "When it matters, anyway. Like now. You honestly need to wear something other than your uniform to this party."

"So very funny," Shepard repeated, with extra blandness. "I appreciate the—"

Kasumi wiggled the bag, making it dance enticingly. "You're not curious? Not even a little bit? I, um,  _found_  it just for you."

Shepard grimaced. "You know, every time someone tries to shove me into a dress, it's a nightmare."  _A dress hangs from her closet door. It_ _'s probably worth more than the entire house on Mindoir, including all the furniture. It's virginal white and looks uncomfortably like a wedding gown, right down to all the beading and rhinestones and embroidery defacing it._ Shepard coughed uneasily and ignored the tightness in her throat, feigning lightness as she retorted, "What is it about me that screams skintight black leather, anyway? Or, worse, some kind of plastic masquerading as leather. I think I'll stick with the devil I know."

Kasumi placed the makeup case on the desk, and undeterred, walked an appraising circle around Shepard.

"I've faced Reapers. On foot. More than once. You can't scare me, Goto, not with all the disappointed clucking in the world."

Kasumi laughed, clapping a hand to her heart. "But you're afraid of my sartorial suggestions? I'm sure Harbinger was scarier." When Shepard didn't budge, Kasumi sighed heavily. "If you hate it, I'll… I'll go to the party with my face showing. No hood, no tactical cloak. Kasumi Goto unmasked. How's that for incentive?"

Shepard's eyebrow twitched. The thief threw her hands wide in a gesture half invitation and half surrender. "Look, the black dress was the right thing for  _Alison Gunn,_  Shep. Remember?  _Badass Weekly_? Heartless mercenary? I don't think Commander Shepard needs help in the badass department. Though her reliance on Alliance uniforms for every occasion leaves something to be desired, in my ever so humble opinion."

Shepard relented. Reluctantly. And with ill-humor. "Oh, fine. But I'm holding you to that bet." She narrowed her eyes. "And if there's an N7 stripe on there, I won't be held responsible for my inevitable retaliation."

Kasumi's lips turned down in an exaggerated pout. "A little tasteful red, white, and black never hurt anyone. After all your heroics, I'm pretty sure every designer who wasn't blasted to smithereens by Reaper fire is going to come out with  _N7-inspired_  lines this season. Red hair's already all the rage."

"You are obviously joking." But Shepard laughed as she said it, already reaching for the zipper on Kasumi's mysterious luggage. "Because if you aren't joking, I'm going to cry."

The zipper slid effortlessly, a sure sign of expense, though she couldn't fathom what kind of pricy shops might be functioning—or  _why_ —in the current economy. Perhaps some enterprising tailor had reopened the second word of this particular party had gotten out. Shepard's lips twisted grimly. Or perhaps the truly wealthy maintained a market for this kind of thing, even in wartime.

Anyone other than Kasumi, and Shepard would already have been figuring out just how many credits she needed to transfer. She was about to say as much when the bag opened, revealing its touted contents.

The dress wasn't leather, and it wasn't black, and even before she saw the whole of it, Shepard knew Kasumi wasn't going to have to show her face any time soon.

"Damn, Kasumi."

Kasumi's laugh was dangerously close to a giggle; Shepard could only imagine what the thief saw on her face to elicit it. She couldn't bring herself to care. Her fingers hovered above the dress, not quite willing to touch it. "The hanger doesn't even do it justice," Kasumi said, without bothering to hide the satisfaction in her tone. "And you have Karin Chakwas to thank for the accuracy of the measurements. The ones in your file are woefully out of date."

Shepard made a face. "I have a post-war date with an all-you-can-eat buffet."

"Not before you wear this dress."

Holding her breath, Shepard freed the dress from the garment bag and held it up. Kasumi was right. Of course. Now that she'd seen it, she couldn't bear the thought of spending the evening in her uniform. Blending in or no blending in.

"Shit," Shepard murmured, with reverence, turning wide eyes Kasumi's way. The thief basked under the attention, and Shepard couldn't even resent the smugness. It was too well-deserved. "You win."

"I know," Kasumi replied as she— _oh, God_ —skipped a little toward the makeup case. "I usually do. Now sit down and let the master work."

#

It took Garrus exactly three whole shocked seconds to realize the woman who answered the door was Shepard. He was opening his mouth to apologize for disturbing her when the face turned up to look at him and he was forced instead to swallow and reach for an entirely different set of words. Ones like  _beautiful_  and  _unbelievable_  preferably. A few loose curls framed her face, but the rest of her hair was bound up, woven with thin strands of gold and blue fabric. Even her makeup was different. Softer, maybe. Less like protection and more a masterpiece of subtle enhancement. Her eyes looked huge and her lips so inviting he wanted to forget they had somewhere else to be, no matter how important that somewhere else was.

She stepped back, and he let his eyes drop. Instead of the uniform he'd been expecting, she wore a dress he'd never seen before. The garment was nothing like the black ones he'd seen before, but neither did it resemble the asari fashions so popular everywhere in the galaxy, except in length. Instead of skintight, the dress clung and draped and skimmed her curves before falling in soft folds to brush the floor. No garish cutout panels revealed swathes of inexplicable flesh. Shepard was covered from throat to wrists to ankles in blue fabric tucked and gathered to hint at the figure beneath while effectively revealing nothing. The fabric covering neck and shoulders and arms, embroidered with a faint tracery of gold, was sheer enough for him to make out the lines and curves of muscle and collarbone beneath, but not so transparent as to reveal the last lingering echoes of the scars still marring her skin.

The shade of blue matched his colony markings exactly.

So exactly it couldn't be a coincidence.

"Uh," he said. Eloquently. He shifted from one foot to the other, and then awkwardly back again. He couldn't stop staring. He knew he  _had to_ , he had to say  _something_ , but  _uh_  was the only thing that came out. Twice. More. Followed by a resoundingly clever, "Um."

A little ghost of self-deprecation flitted across her features. That wasn't right. Her fingers plucked at her skirts, and faint threads of gold caught the light when she moved. She glowed. He had to find better words.

"Tell her her hair looks good and her waist is very supportive," Kasumi hissed in a stage-whisper loud enough for the prefab unit down the hill to hear. Garrus inhaled sharply, shock making his mandibles flare, and when Shepard blushed the color of her hair, he had the sneaking suspicion the thief hadn't come by that information entirely honestly. "I hear she goes for lines like that."

"Kasumi Goto!" Shepard wheeled on her in a dangerous flurry of blue skirts. Oh.  _Spirits_. Her  _waist_. What the hell had she done to her  _waist_?  _Supportive_  was not the word. Not even close. This time his uncomfortable shift from foot to foot wasn't entirely because of awkwardness. Shepard, intent on chastising the smirking thief, didn't appear to notice. Kasumi, of course, did. "You did  _not_."

Kasumi shrugged, grinning, dancing a step backwards, out of Shepard's reach. "It was in the hamster's house, so I missed the best parts. More's the pity."

"You used  _Odysseus_  against me?" Shepard gasped, her horror not entirely feigned.

"Shep, you caught me red-handed in your underwear drawer and you think I'd draw the line at spying via hamster? I'm wounded. It's like you don't know me at all." The thief smiled as she crossed the room, pausing at the door. "She's a present you get to unwrap  _later_ , Garrus," Kasumi warned, tilting her head up until he saw the glitter of mirth in her shadowed eyes. If he were able to blush, he thought he'd be doing it; Shepard was certainly pink enough for the both of them. "Don't be late!"

"My  _hamster_ , Kasumi!" Shepard cried as the door slid shut behind the smirking thief. "My  _hamster._ "

If nothing else, however, the moment had freed at least a few of Garrus' words. "Shepard," he said, subharmonics thrumming with a mix of desire and appreciation and  _complete_ disbelief that she was choosing to stand at  _his_  side, of all places. "You… your… dress."

As compliments went, he was afraid it wasn't actually any better than  _um._

"This old thing?" she said, her joking tone a deflection as familiar as his own stumbling inability to find the words to say what he wanted to say. Her smile, though, was pleased, and the pink in her cheeks no longer due to embarrassment. "Is it smoking? To borrow a word from Vega?"

The memory of that conversation loosened a chuckle from his tight chest, and his mandibles flared as he shook his head. "Not good enough a word. You're beautiful, Shepard. Not… not just the dress. You. You're… breathtaking."

She ducked her head to hide a pleased grin, land lifted one blue-clad arm and ran her fingers down the front of the formal suit she'd insisted he wear instead of armor, flattening her palm over his heart. "You clean up well, yourself, Vakarian. You'll be the most dashing turian at the ball."

He made a dismissive noise, but Shepard was undeterred, rising onto her toes to press a kiss to his mandible.

"And let me tell you," she added, dropping back to her heels, a hint of a smirk playing about her mouth, "nice as the dress is? I think you're  _really_  going to enjoy what's happening underneath it."

"Not fair," he muttered. She cocked a hip in a way that did obscene things to the curve of her waist and throwing him a wink and an impish smile. "Not fair at all."

"But you want to know the best part?" Shepard asked brightly.

He glanced at her skeptically, letting his gaze linger appreciatively on her so accentuated curves. "There's something better than your waist?"

She smacked him lightly across his upper arm before dropping her hands and lifting the hem of her skirt. Beneath the flowing fabric, her feet were encased in flat blue slippers glittering with beadwork. "No abominable heels!"

#

As their car, screened for anything remotely hostile and chauffeured by Cortez instead of the well-dressed Alliance lieutenant who'd brought the vehicle over, pulled up to a building hastily scrubbed and tended and patched up for the occasion, Garrus shook his head in silent disbelief. Looking around, no one would believe the entire galaxy had been—only a few short months earlier—on the very brink of annihilation. The wretched memory of Mars, of red drifts of sand and the silence of a planet's death, struck him like a blow. He wondered what Palaven looked like now, wondered if he'd even recognize the bones of what had been Cipritine. He wondered how many civilians still waited on desperate, dying planets for rescue, for relief, and his gut twisted.

"It's enough to make you sick, isn't it?" Shepard asked softly, her voice pitched low. He didn't ask what incongruous memories she was reliving; in the dark of the car's interior her eyes were bright not with tears but with anger. She shook her head and bunched her hands in her skirt. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

Like they'd done at Khan's benefit, Shepard and Garrus walked a red carpet as the flash of lights and the beeping whirr of cameras punctuated their every step. This time, Shepard didn't wave, and her smile remained a little frayed at the edges, a little angry. Her hand curled around his arm, holding tight, and they didn't banter. Shepard was too tense. Beneath her fake smile and her lifted chin, the line of her shoulders and the rigidity of her spine spoke volumes.

The tension didn't ease as Hackett greeted them. It certainly didn't ebb as she was mobbed by well-wishers desperate for a word with the  _great Commander Shepard_. She left her hand curled in the crook of his arm and, though her smile didn't falter, she was careful not to let anyone come too close. She nodded greetings instead of shaking hands; she spoke a word or two before moving resolutely onward, every bit the soldier reclaiming lost territory from the enemy, giving back nothing in return. Gradually, the crowd thinned, and she began weaving a deliberate path toward the bar. Her smile remained, but he could see how sickly it was, how strained, so he put himself between her and the next person who looked like they wanted to talk to her.

Halfway to giving him an appreciative—and much more genuine—smile, Garrus felt Shepard stiffen, and he turned to see what had caused it.

Garrus had spent long enough on the Citadel—and on the Presidium—to recognize obscene wealth when he saw it. The woman gliding across the room to intercept them certainly fit the profile. Her dress was the height of asari fashion, garish cutout panels and all, and he couldn't have pegged her age for a million credits, which made him think she was probably at least a decade or two older than she wanted people to think she was. Not a single silvery blonde hair or thread or fold of fabric was out of place. He'd have given his left spur to avoid talking to her, but Shepard's sigh and lifted chin said this was an encounter not to be avoided. The woman's gaze swept across them, and he watched her dismiss him completely before fixating on Shepard, scrutinizing her as if looking for inevitable flaws. She didn't bother hiding the faint smile of surprise and approval when, evidently, nothing overt offended her sensibilities.

"Moira," Shepard said, in the kind of tone Garrus knew she usually reserved for politicians or people she was about to kill. Or turians who made her uneasy. He swallowed down the unexpected pain of that memory as Moira moved in, trailed by a cloud of perfume. When she attempted to lean close enough to waft kisses toward Shepard's cheeks—a strange custom Garrus had seen human women engage in on more than one occasion, though he'd never seen Shepard do it—Shepard took a slight step back.

Garrus watched Moira Callahan the way he'd watch a suspect, looking for clues in the set of her spine and the turn of her countenance. Her smile never faded or faltered. Something in her eyes was as dangerous as Shepard's tone, though far more subtle.

"My dear girl," the woman murmured, turning her body slightly to exclude Garrus, though not enough to be openly offensive. He suspected she was always precisely aware of what she could get away with. "I simply  _had_  to come when I heard you'd be here. They were starting to spread the most alarming rumors. I simply couldn't  _bear_  the thought, after all that nonsense a few years ago."

Shepard arched a brow and her fingertips pressed against his arm with just a bit too much pressure to be accidental. "The nonsense where I died, you mean?"

Garrus supposed the slightly narrowed eyes were meant to stand in place of an open admonishment. Instead of acknowledging Shepard's words, Moira only raised one slender shoulder and said, "Vincent sends his love." She waved airily, her hand glittering with jewels. Garrus couldn't imagine how much the collection was worth. Or how heavy they must be. "He didn't take the troubles well, poor dear."

"The troubles," Shepard echoed with dull incomprehension. "You mean the galaxy-wide war that killed billions? Those troubles?"

"Don't be vulgar, darling. It's terribly unsightly. "

"Vulgar," Shepard muttered under her breath. Garrus could feel how hard she was trying not to roll her eyes. "Unsightly. Unbelievable." The narrowing of Shepard's eyes wasn't subtle in the slightest; Garrus had seen krogan tremble before the force of the glare she sent Moira's way now. Moira only blinked and loosed a faint titter of nervous laughter.

"Now, darling, that's not what I—"

"I am not your darling," Shepard said, each word crisp and inarguable as a sniper's bullet. "And I'm not your dear girl. I am Commander Shepard of the Alliance Navy."

"Don't be ridiculous! Why, we're practically  _family_. Honestly, I've never once understood this… this blatant  _hostility_. After everything we did for—"

With a smile every bit as fake as Moira Callahan's, Shepard interrupted Moira by turning to him and saying, "I'd kill for a drink." Her lips turned up, a secret kind of dark amusement playing about the corners as she ignored Moira Callahan in the exact manner Moira had earlier ignored him. Moira's lips thinned, though the rest of her face remained carefully blank. When she made the mistake of catching his gaze, he flared his mandibles slightly and gave her the sort of smile that had made more than one perp tremble in its time. He found himself reminded of Kron Harga, though this slender, wealthy woman couldn't have looked more different. She reeked of corruption. He could smell the blood on her hands, but he was damned sure she'd always been careful never to let a drop of it stain where anyone might find it.

"Sure, Shepard." He never took his eyes from Moira's. Her cheeks flushed, but she didn't look away. Finally, just as he was certain she was uncomfortable, he sighed as if he couldn't be bothered with her—his best C-Sec superiority. Her lip curled, but she held her tongue. It warmed him to imagine just how much her silence was costing her. Not enough. Never enough. He inclined his head and searched Shepard's face for reluctance, or for orders she wasn't willing to speak aloud. She twitched her chin in the direction of the bar.

"You're on my six," she said softly.

"Always," he replied. He turned to Moira, and with scathing irony said, "Ma'am."

This time, he saw Moira Callahan's jaw clench, and he considered the loss of control a victory worth the risk of making an enemy of her.


	48. Profit and Loss

As Garrus walked toward the bar, Shepard took as deep and steadying a breath as her Kasumi-induced corsetry would allow.  _Showtime. Hell, when isn_ _'t it showtime?_ From this vantage, she could see a few familiar faces mingling in the crowd, and knew for every one she was aware of, yet more lurked in silent protection. She still felt exposed. All the backup in the world wouldn't help if an assassin already had her in his sights. Not that she was anticipating such a literal attack here, now, but once a sniper, always a sniper. She was too used to being at the other end of that scope. Old habits died hard. So did old distrust.

Back when Shepard was sixteen and looking for someone to save her from the horror her life had become, Moira Callahan had seemed a gift, with her kindness and her presents and her estate ringed with guards and the best security system credits could buy. She'd thought—foolishly, perhaps—no harm could come to her there, no sudden attack in the night, no bubbling yellow paint, no fire, no blood.

In the end, the attack was a more insidious one. It came guised as friendship, as generosity. It was delivered by a hand outstretched in friendship. It was Shepard's first lesson in the perils of placing one's trust in the wrong people. A different kind of murder, of a different kind of innocence.

Everything, Shepard learned, had a price. Moira's was subtle, but no less steep. A doll to dress up, to plot with, to use in her games. She was expected to behave, to smile, to listen, to report what she heard. When she was sixteen and sad, Shepard had let her. She hadn't known better.

Now she did.

Mouth curved in a smile like a knife, Shepard turned back to Moira in time to catch the faint curl of disgust on the older woman's lips. It vanished almost instantly, replaced by the same bland mask of civility Moira wore so well. Shepard's smile sharpened, lethal.

"You don't approve of my choice in lovers?" Shepard asked, a little poison in her pertness. Moira winced at the word  _lover_  the way she wouldn't have reacted to  _boyfriend_ , and Shepard added a mental tally under the column she was keeping.  _Shepard, one. Callahan, zero._  "Granted, he's not short, sweaty, and richer than God, but he does love me." Shepard narrowed her eyes, the weapon of her polite smile never slipping. "And he's loyal. There's something to be said for that."

As a feint, it was only partly successful. Instead of ruffling her, Moira's mask hardened. No hint of color stole the coolness from her marble cheeks, though her eyes burned.  _If looks could kill. Yeah, well. I know that trick, too._  "Your deviancy is hardly any of my concern," Moira replied in the same tone she might've used to mention some change in the weather or remark on a shift in the season's style of dress. "Though I suppose this does put your cruel dismissal of poor Nicky into perspective."

"Your son's thwarted hopes have absolutely nothing to do with me," Shepard said. "I don't think the thought would ever have occurred to him, if someone hadn't planted it there." She waved airily, as if to make a point, but added a sharp little gesture to the end of it. Moira didn't appear to notice. Shepard didn't bother turning to make certain Garrus got the message.  _Hold your position._  "Speaking of ideas you planted, the  _Alliance_? Really? Wasn't he meant to go into law, politics? A lifetime of playing the ultimate pawn?"

Moira's lips compressed, revealing a hint of her true age in the faint lines that appeared around her mouth. The crow's feet that should have feathered the corners of her eyes had been doctored away; the paper-fine skin there didn't so much as crease. "Nicholas chose the Alliance himself. After your exploits on Elysium. Evidently he was… inspired." She spoke the final word as though it tasted particularly bitter. "As you would have known, had you read any of our messages. I suppose he's done well enough, all things considered."

"Meaning he's an officer on Admiral Hackett's staff and still loyal enough to feed you intelligence. Does he even know he's doing it? Or have you painted it with pretty words and the best of intentions? Does he think he's a hero?"

Moira lifted an elegant shoulder in a nonchalant shrug, and Shepard's hand shot out. To anyone watching it was meant to look like she was merely reaching for Moira's elbow to guide her through the press. Her grip, however, was strong, and only Moira's prodigious reserve of poise kept her from showing pain on her face. She'd probably have finger-shaped bruises tomorrow; Shepard couldn't bring herself to care. Bruises healed. Betrayal's consequences ran far, far deeper. "First Lieutenant after a decade is hardly a meteoric rise. I've seen his service record. It is in every way unremarkable. Certainly nothing to recommend him to a position with the Fleet Admiral, even accounting for all the wartime turnover. I suspect you made someone in administration very rich. Honestly, I cannot imagine how much it cost you."

"Paranoia is terribly—"

"Let me guess," Shepard interrupted, sharp and saccharine, still half-dragging Moira through the crowd. Anyone who made the mistake of meeting her gaze hurriedly stepped out of their path. She thought longingly of her tactical cloak; she'd have used it if she thought it would cover both of them. Exposed. So exposed. "Unsightly."

When Shepard finally stopped, Moira made an attempt to jerk her elbow away; Shepard didn't even have to tighten her hold to keep the woman tucked close to her side. Like confidantes sharing secrets. She almost laughed, the very idea was so ludicrous. This spot was quieter, less crowded, with better sight lines and her back to a wall. Farther from the press of warm bodies, the overwhelming scent of a hundred different perfumes, and the cacophonous chatter of voices, voices, voices. A little of her discomfort ebbed, though a headache remained staunchly in place. It was hardly optimal cover, but it was better than standing in the middle of the room, unprotected on all sides. Garrus still stood at the bar, but the line of his shoulders and the tilt of his head said he disliked her delay and her change of position.

"Paranoia," Moira replied tartly, "is a mark of weakness. Down that path madness. Or permanent residency inside one's panic room."

"In my line of work, paranoia keeps you alive longer than fancy weapons or kinetic shields." Shepard smiled a  _come no closer_  warning at some inane well-wisher before flashing Garrus one more  _hold your position_. Vega was fifty feet to her right, on Hackett guard duty. He nodded at her and lifted a brow in question. She shook her head. Hackett himself was conversing with the primarch; Shepard only hoped they could play nice while she was otherwise occupied. "How long do you intend to play this game? Because I've had just about my fill of doubled-edged small-talk and my well-honed instincts are screaming that you want something from me, or you wouldn't be here. What is it?"

"I haven't the faintest idea what you—"

Shepard shook her head. The curls framing her face bobbed incongruously, so much less effective than a pistol to point in that untouchable face. "The truth, Moira." She tightened her hand just a little more, the manicured ends of her nails digging into the skin left bare by Moira's dress. She knew three ways to shatter the woman's arm without breaking a sweat. A little more effort and she could break the arm  _and_  dislocate a shoulder. The headache throbbed behind her eyes.  _You want unsightly? I_ _'ll give you unsightly._   _Just give me one good lie, and see how I make you pay for it._

Faint spots of color bloomed high in the woman's cheeks. "Very well. I wanted to apologize."

Polite fencing momentarily forgotten, Shepard barked a short, sharp laugh.  _I said a good lie._ A pair of women tittered behind their hands; Shepard wondered if they were in Moira's employ, or Kasumi's. "You cannot seriously expect me to believe that. What do you really want? And, while we're at it, who are you working for?"

Moira smiled indulgently. Shepard didn't miss the strain. The clipped words lacked something of their previous surety. Shepard didn't dare let herself believe it. As feints went, pretending at weakness was an old one. Animals trapped in corners fought hardest, after all. "Darling, I'm a philanthropist. I serve the interests of the downtrodden."

"Bullshit," Shepard hissed. "Moira Callahan serves the interests of Moira Callahan. I know how it works. Who's lining your pockets this time? Who owes you favors? Whose favors are you calling in?"

"You," Moira said coldly, too coldly for it to be anything but real, "haven't any idea what kind of sleeping giant you're about to wake. Darling."

"And I'm not the scared little girl you kept wrapped in white and tissue paper and fear for two years. Not anymore."

Moira tilted her head, appraising, her brow raised ever so slightly as if in surprise. Or perhaps disgust. On her face of patchwork youth-enhancing surgeries it was hard to tell the difference. "No, indeed you're not. She'd have been clever enough to let well enough alone. Or at least she'd have held her tongue until she took the measure of her enemy." Here, though, a ghost of fear—unmistakable for all its swift suppression—flitted across her face. "You are playing with fire."

"And you're mixing your metaphors. Is this meant to frighten me? I fought the Saren, the Collectors, the  _Reapers_ —"

"Did you?" Moira asked pointedly. Two words. Two little words with the force of bullets, the double-tap from that imagined unseen sniper, the fencing foil bent as it pressed a very decided and final point into an unguarded heart. Two words, with a poisonous ghost of emphasis on the second. Instead of releasing Moira's arm, Shepard only held tighter and wished her hand were closed around the woman's lying throat.  _Break arm, dislocate shoulder, snap neck. The work of a minute._  Blood pounded in Shepard's ears, distorting the sounds around her as if she were underwater. Drowning. Moira lifted her chin and said, a little too loudly, "You're hurting me."

"This is the least of what I'll do to you," Shepard snarled, pitching her voice low.  _Did you? Did_ you _?_  The nearby women weren't tittering anymore. One was watching the scene unfold with wide eyes, the other glanced away when Shepard looked at her, a distressed blush in her cheeks. Shepard looked away, tried to wrangle her emotions, and mostly failed.  _You weren't yourself. This isn't you, either._  She took a deep breath. Released it. Garrus was standing straight again, his eyes sharp on her even from across the room.  _Hold your position. Hold your position._  "What aren't you telling me? What do you know?"

"You are  _hurting_  me," Moira repeated, a little louder. "I'll call for the authorities. See if I won't."

"I'm a Council Spectre," Shepard replied. "I am the damned authorities. Answer the questions."

_Break arm, dislocate shoulder, snap neck. Walk away._

_This isn't you, either._

It was some measure of the intensity of Moira's emotion that, for a moment, her expression was transformed by disgust. "Why should I? I owe you nothing, ungrateful girl. You're the one who owes  _me_. Where would you have been without us? An orphanage? The gutter? Dead? And how did you repay us? Spitting on the plans we made. Distance. Silence."

"You have quite the skewed definition of the word  _we,_ " Shepard retorted.

"Is this woman bothering you—" The both startled a little when the voice of a nearby Alliance guard—not Vega, not anyone she'd served with—spoke close to them. Shepard bit down on the inside of her cheek but didn't release Moira's arm. Not yet. Not now. Not when with answers so close she could practically taste them.

 _Do you want them, though?_  A cruel little voice asked. Moira's. Brooks'. Her own, maybe, or her clone's. She couldn't tell. Maybe it was all of them. Maybe it didn't matter. The headache pulsed in time with her heart.  _What if they're things you don't want to hear?_

"Yes," Moira began, only to be interrupted by the Alliance soldier ignoring her and repeating, "Is this woman bothering you, Commander Shepard?"

"We're fine, Lieutenant," Shepard replied evenly. "A difference of opinion."

"Aye, ma'am. I'll, uh, let you get back to your conversation, then."

Shepard nodded brisk assent, releasing Moira's arm. The temptation to break it didn't disappear, so she grabbed a fistful of her own skirt and held tight to it. Moira's too-smooth, too-hairless flesh was marred by the pink echoes of fingerprints already turning purple, and the thin half-moon crescents of nails.

Not yet. Not now.

_This isn't you, either._

_So who is it?_

"Taking the measure of one's enemy," Shepard said softly, the words falling like stones into the still water of the sudden silence between them. "Not an apology. Not a warning."

"You shouldn't be here," Moira replied.

Shepard went cold and almost grabbed the woman again. "What?"

"You're not supposed to be here," Moira said, taking a step back. "You're not one of us. Stick to what you know, darling."

Shepard almost jumped out of her skin— _arm, shoulder, neck_ —before she realized the warm solid weight that slid up behind her was Garrus. His hand hovered at her lower back, not touching her. "Shepard," he said. Just that. Just  _Shepard_. It meant  _Shepard, are you okay? Shepard, do we need to leave? Shepard, what the hell's going on?_

She didn't know how to answer any of those questions. Moira was still watching her. Her head. Her head was killing her. Every inhale added olfactory insult to the existing injury of her damned headache. She reached up and rubbed her nose. Sneezed.

_She is five years old. Her mother smells of earth and cookies and roses. You did good, child._

"My God, Garrus," she said, as the room swam alarmingly before her eyes, a sea of blurred faces. Shivering, the rubbed her hands up and down her arms. The gesture brought her no comfort, the skin of her palms so sensitive even the faintly raised embroidery made it ache.

_She is sixteen years old. She's clutching a screwdriver and she smells of blood and the faded scent of roses. You're not supposed to be here._

She swallowed, but her mouth was dry. Too dry. Her fingers fluttered to press her breastbone over her heart, the too-rapid pulse at her throat, the spot of pain blooming like a wound between her eyes. Roses. The cloying scent of too-strong roses, laced with something else, something darker, something that bent close to her ear and whispered  _listen, listen, listen._

_She is eighteen years old. Her dress is white. The whole world smells of gardenias and roses. What do you need me to do?_

Garrus put an arm around her, turning his body to protect her from the eyes, the smiles, the faces. His mouth moved, but she couldn't hear him.  _Listen, listen, listen._  "That smell," she whispered, choking on it. "What's that smell?"

_She can't breathe. She can't breathe._

_I'm sorry, Shepard._


	49. Drowned the Sense in Odors

_She is thirty-three years old._

_Something is meant to happen (what?). They (who?) have been planning it for months (when?). She just has to remember (how?). She just has to remember what it is (why why why?)._

_She knows she’s not dressed properly and she hasn’t the time to change, but instead of the legendary disappointment, for once no hint of disapproval lurks in her foster mother’s expression. No. This is anticipation. It is time to dance, perhaps, with her foster father’s friends. Only important men are invited to the parties her foster parents throw. (But this party isn’t theirs, is it? Isn’t it hers? Shouldn’t she be able to—)_

_She steels herself, prepares. She can do this. The turian first, the one with all the complicated white markings. The scarred, grey-haired man with the kind eyes. The big krogan with the huge hump and the face full of scars. (So many scars. All of them scarred, all of them scared, all of them broken.) She must dance with them all. It’s expected. She’s been told._

_(What do you need me to do?)_

_She’s always been good at following orders._

_Before she can move, a turian steps between her and her foster mother. A different turian, not the important one she’s meant to dance with. The blue on his face is the same as the blue of her dress, and for a moment she thinks she knows his name, for a moment she almost finds words—_ make it stop, make it end, please don’t make me go back, I don’t know what’s real when I’m there—

_But as she inhales (she can’t breathe), preparing to speak, the words vanish again like smoke, like ghosts, like the whispers of the dead, leaving only cold and roses and rain—is it raining now? It rains so often here, it rains all the time, it’s raining, it’s pouring—and different words, ones that don’t belong to her. Orders._

_She remembers now. She remembers what she’s supposed to do._

_(You’re not supposed to be here.)_

_Listen, listen, listen._

_(You should go. Go, go, go!)_

_Break, dislocate, snap._

_A different kind of dance._

_She is a weapon._

_Point her and shoot._

_The mission always comes first, and the blue-marked turian is in her way. Her foster mother smiles._

#

“What did you do to her?”

“We were merely conversing. She was behaving… erratically. And then this.”

“Bullshit. Shepard? Shepard. Listen to me. _Listen_. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but—”

“Perhaps she’s… not herself.”

“Perhaps I’ll kill you first and ask questions later. What the hell did you do to her?”

#

_She is thirty-three years old._

_(Or is it thirty-one? Do the dead years count? No, don’t think about that. Don’t think about meat and tubes. Don’t think about stars, always falling, and the cold. Don’t think about—)_

_Killing turians is hard. She knows how to do it. She knows at least half a dozen ways to kill any species, every species. It’s easier with a weapon. She reaches for the gun at her hip, the one she keeps slung on her back, but her hands come away empty. No matter. She is a weapon. Point her and shoot. One target, two. Three. Break, dislocate, snap._

_She has trained for this. Has been trained for this._

“ _You’re good at hitting targets,” an instructor once told her. (Where? When?) She can’t remember his name, but she remembers how proud she was that he noticed her, that he approved of her. Approval seemed so important, then. (You did good, child.) “But can you look through the scope, right into a person’s eyes, and still pull the trigger?”_

_She could. Not easily. She carries the weight of all those eyes. They watch her from the trees. They whisper when she sleeps._

_(God. Feels like ages since I just sat down.)_

_Blue eyes gaze into hers now, so intent, so intense. She cannot escape them. He’s not her target, but his scrutiny makes her uneasy. He sees too much. His mouth moves. His mandibles flare. That’s the first step, she knows, grab the mandibles, pull them back, twist, break._

_While he’s incapacitated with broken mandibles, she’d go for the spurs. Spurs are weak; injury to them causes almost insurmountable pain. His are unarmored. If she grabs hold of his cowl and brings her foot down with all the force of her leg behind it, she can dislocate them. Right first, then left. It won’t be easy to snap his neck, but she has always been deceptively strong. No one ever sees her coming. She can be a ghost when she must. She can be a shadow. It’s how she’s survived this long. Break, dislocate, snap. Walk away. Find her target. One, two, three._

_(No. Not him.)_

_He’s nothing._

_(Not him.)_

_That’s an order, soldier!_

_(Your boyfriend has an order for you. Your boyfriend—)_

_She has a name. This turian is saying it. Over and over. It’s wrong. She is a weapon. Just a weapon. Weapons aren’t named. They are used. Used and discarded. She knows how to kill him. Break, dislocate, snap._

_(Not. Him.)_

_She can’t breathe._

_(Make it stop, make it end, please don’t make me go back, I don’t know what’s real when I’m there.)_

_Weapons don’t breathe either._

_Every muscle screams, every nerve fires. Every fiber of her being says BREAK, DISLOCATE, SNAP. Her hands ache with the compulsion to act. The white-marked turian first. Then the old man with the scar. The big krogan. The krogan will kill her, but by then it won’t matter. Her job will be done. Mission accomplished._

_The mission. The mission always comes first._

_She knows what she has to do._

#

“What the fuck’s going on here? What the _fuck_ is wrong with her? Fuck, Shepard, you better not be pulling this Trojan Horse, gift from Grixos bullshit now.”

“Gift from—damn it, Shepard. That’s why she had you watching her?”

“Well, it’s not like I get off on seeing you two make puppy eyes at each other, you know. I thought—fuck. I thought she was going to be okay.”

“She is. She _is_.”

“No. She really isn’t.”

“Fuck you, too, lady. Hey, who’s the uppity bitch with a fucking death wish?”

#

_She is thirty-three years old._

_(Or is it three? They remade her, then. Built her with scraps held together with cybernetics and hope. Meat and tubes. How real is she anyway? How long has she been alive? How long has she been dead? She doesn’t want to think about watching her own face falling, falling away, falling down, but she sees it, she sees it all the time. She had hate in her eyes, the woman who looked like her but wasn’t, wasn’t. Maybe she had tears. Those eyes haunt her, too. That voice whispers._ She _was three. She was three and she’d never been happy, she’d never been safe, not once. Not once. And then she died and no one wanted to bring her back again. She wasn’t worth the trouble.)_

It’s raining. It’s pouring. 

_It’s time._

The old man is snoring. 

_Turian. Human. Krogan._

He fell out of bed and bumped his head.

_What do you need me to do?_

_Kill. Kill the turian. Kill the admiral. Kill the krogan. Die trying._

And he couldn’t get up in the morning.

#

“Hey, Shep, we—okay, I—didn’t work that hard so you could play wallflower all—”

“Not now.”

“What’s going o—”

“No one has a fucking clue. Except maybe the blonde bitch who won’t talk.”

“Nothing will change.”

“Tell it to my biotics, lady. Better yet, tell it to the wall when my biotics fling you into it.”

#

_She is thirty-three years old. She is thirty-one; she is three. She is in two places at the same time. Maybe more. It shouldn’t be possible, but she is always doing the impossible, isn’t she? Isn’t she? She is wearing a blue dress. It is not yet stained with blood, but it will be. It won’t be as bad as white; at least turian blood is blue. It will hardly show. It will hardly show at all. She is a weapon._

_(A victim.)_

_A woman steps out from behind her foster mother. She’s grown, but she wears a little girl’s ruffled white dress, patent Mary Janes, knee-high socks. One is pulled high, the other is crumpled around her ankle. Her hair should be held back by a pink ribbon, but it isn’t; it falls in a soft, dark curtain around her face. It doesn’t hide her expression. She’s frowning. Not disappointed, just sad. So, so sad._

_She looks down at her hand, expecting to see that missing pink ribbon wrapped around it, but her skin is bare. “Is it time?”_

_The woman smiles. So sadly. Even sadder than the frown. “I don’t know, Skipper. You tell me. Are you finished yet?”_

_She shakes her head, not sure if she’s saying no or just deflecting the question._

“ _You want me to give you a push?”_

_Again she shakes her head, but she can’t say why, can’t say what it means._

“ _Your nose is bleeding, Skipper.”_

_She shivers. “You should go. You can’t help me.”_

“ _Skipp—”_

_Softly, so softly, she bends her head and whispers, “Tell me something true.”_

_The turian shudders. She feels it. Like she’s already broken him. Maybe she has._

_You are a weapon._

_(What do you need me to do?)_

_Tell me something true._

_You’re a peacemaker._

_(You did good, child.)_

_Tell me something true._

_They worked you over good, didn’t they?_

_(You’re not supposed to be here.)_

_Listen, listen, listen._

“ _The mission comes first. The mission always comes first.”_

_The woman in her little girl’s dress is gone when she looks up. She’s alone. It’s time to go home. (Her parents will be so worried. They’ll be mad and they’ll probably be scared and she’s in big, big trouble.)_

_Her hands lift, slowly. Too slowly; he’ll realize what she’s doing if she doesn’t move fast; he knows her too well; he knows her better than anyone; there’s nobody in the galaxy—_

_She reaches for his mandibles. He’s distracted, his too-intense gaze turned away from her at last, looking over his shoulder at the space where the woman in the white-ruffled dress had stood._

_Another woman appears, almost as much an apparition as the first had been. She looks all wrong, too thin, her once-long hair cropped, her pale skin bruised. The eyes are right, though. They’re blue, too. They’re intense, too. “Stop,” the woman says. Orders._

_She stops, her hands frozen halfway to grasping the turian’s mandibles. She’s good at following orders._

“ _I’m sorry, Shepard.”_

_Sorry for what?_

“ _It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”_

_It never is._

_The woman lifts her hand, her fingers forming a gun, thumb pointed up, two fingers pointed forward, two fingers curled in. She cocks it. Takes a shot._

_As the world goes dark with all the suddenness of a switch being flipped, she thinks_ curiouser and curiouser, _and she wants to laugh. Or she wants to cry. Instead she just falls._

#

Shepard dropped. Not gracefully, like in the vids. Not prettily. It was as if someone had abruptly and unexpectedly kicked her knees out from behind, and if Garrus hadn’t reached out with desperate hands to halt her fall, he knew she’d have sprawled flat, arms askew like the useless limbs of a puppet with no puppeteer to guide them. He caught her before her head hit the ground, before she clipped her chin or smashed her nose or was forced by momentum to bite through her own tongue. She didn’t stir. Didn’t wake. Seemed hardly to breathe.

Pulling her close, he turned, still crouched on one knee, his body curled to protect as much of hers as he could. The whole exchange had taken only minutes, only moments. Around them, people still laughed, still drank, still danced, oblivious. He wanted to flee before anyone noticed, before the inevitable ripple of horror and _what happened_ spread through the crowd _._ Jack held one of Moira’s elbows, her fingers ever so faintly glowing with crackles of blue. Kasumi hovered at the other, omni-tool raised. 

Garrus, however, had eyes only for the newest arrivals. Liara he knew at once, of course. The other, the stranger—stranger?—was a human woman, painfully thin, uneven tufts of dark hair sticking up at odd angles. Her skin was so pale he could see every vein, clear as rivers marked on a map, and the bruises around her blue eyes weren’t merely smudges of dark exhaustion. Shades of weariness, no matter how deep, didn’t yellow at the edges. He recognized the tenor of the rage—cold, calculating, already exacting a perfect revenge—before he recognized the woman. 

“Miranda,” he said.

Leaning heavily on Liara, Miranda nodded a slight greeting. She didn’t smile when she saw him, though some hint of relief softened the stark lines and hard angles of her too-sharp features.

“Good,” she said incongruously. Pain scraped all the melody from her voice, leaving it rough and raw and almost as unrecognizable as her beaten, broken form. “I was concerned it might not work.”

Moira’s demeanor shifted, fury and fear chasing each other across her face. He saw her start forward, pulling hard against Jack’s grip. “No,” she snarled, suddenly feral, suddenly nothing at all like the cool, composed woman he’d met earlier. “You will not take what is mine.” Arms full of Shepard, Garrus was helpless to prevent Moira from moving, from attacking, but Jack was a step ahead of him, the dim blue flaring momentarily bright. Moira jerked once and froze, her nostrils flared, her eyes so wide and wild Garrus could see the whites all the way around.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Jack demanded. “And what the fuck _happened_ to you?”

Miranda’s throat worked as she swallowed, preparing to speak, but Liara’s was the voice that answered, pitched low, her expression giving nothing away. “It is… a complicated story. And one best divulged in a more private place. One with fewer listening ears and watching eyes.”

With Shepard a heavy weight in his arms, Garrus was impatient for answers, but he knew Liara was right. “Bring Callahan,” he said to Jack. “Keep her quiet. Kasumi, you try to keep the varren off our backs. You have a vehicle?”

Liara nodded. Miranda looked as though she wanted to say more, but swayed on her feet, her paleness turning an even more sickly shade of green. “I’m sorry, Garrus,” Miranda said. “It was the only thing I could think of. It was the only thing.”

He rose, bringing Shepard with him, her limp body leaning against him as though she were merely weary, or had drunk too much. “Not here,” he said, though it took every ounce of willpower he had not to demand _what, Miranda, what have you done?_

Her eyes were so haunted as she spoke the words he couldn’t bring himself to believe the answer would be anything he wanted to hear.


	50. I Will Show You Fear

Since Dr. Chakwas was the only other person who spent any time in the medbay, Solana didn't bother looking up when she heard the doors open. She called out a cheery greeting, assured the good doctor her leg was doing fine and only paused when, instead of the doctor's pleasantries, she was met with silence. Her gut twisted and, suspecting what she'd see when she turned, she delayed just moment longer, like a child convinced if she didn't see something, it wouldn't be true.

But the truth was her brother, trailed by a stony-faced Zaeed, settling his burden—his all too familiar burden—on one of the beds. The truth was that Shepard didn't move, didn't murmur, and if Solana hadn't seen the faint rise of the commander's chest as she breathed, she might've thought bringing her to the medbay a futile gesture. Shepard was too pale and too still and Solana's breath caught as she thought  _no, not again, not again, he can't do this again._  Garrus ran a hand over Shepard's brow, pushing limp curls back from her cheeks. Then he lifted his face and Solana wished he hadn't, because the truth written there was heartbreaking, and she knew him well enough to see right through the grim mask he wore. He was clearly floundering, moving only because it was his duty, a part of him already drowning. She had no idea how to help. No idea at all.

"Where's Chakwas?" Garrus asked. To his credit, he didn't snarl or snap; he sounded only old beyond his years. His hand trembled as it closed around the bed's railing. He looked smaller out of that ever-present armor, thinner than she ever remembered him being, and without the metal encasing him, the shift and shudder of his posture was all too evident.

She'd have run to find the doctor herself if she thought her still-healing new leg could take it. "Crew quarters," Solana answered. "Even she has to sleep sometimes. She's only been gone about an hour."

Garrus nodded a command, but Zaeed didn't need the urging; he was already through the door and jogging away before the gesture was half-finished. Garrus' chin dropped, his mandibles drooping, but the despair lasted only a moment and was replaced with stoicism. Solana wondered how long he could keep it up. Wondered what would happen when he couldn't do it anymore.

"Dad?" she asked.

"Will be here shortly. I've told Grunt to let him pass."

"The Alliance won't like that you've posted a guard on one of their ships."

"It's Shepard's ship," he replied wearily. "It's my ship. The Alliance can screw itself with its own faulty intel."

"Not faulty," said a new voice, and Solana, startled, glanced at the opening door just in time to see not the doctor entering, but a pair of strangers. The human was thin and definitely limping, and even though Solana still had occasional difficulty telling one human face from another, she was certain she'd never met this woman before. Alien or not, she'd have remembered the eyes. Those eyes regarded the medbay with cool precision, like a squad leader looking to find fault and pleased to see everything in order. For all her demeanor of superiority, however, it was not the human who spoke, but the asari guiding and supporting her.

The asari looked entirely too young to be wearing such a weighty expression. Hell, she couldn't be more than a hundred and fifty; practically a child by asari standards. And yet something in her eyes dared doubt, and Solana found she could not. They were all older than they had any right to be. Wars had that effect. "It was compromised intel. As we well knew, since we planted half of it." The asari sighed, her steps small and slow to accommodate her companion's pace. The human looked as though she needed a wheelchair even more than Solana herself did, but something about the steely, determined line of her spine kept her from offering it. "They did exactly what Shepard thought they would do, Garrus. You can hardly blame them. It was what she planned for. Moira Callahan showed her hand and relaxed her guard. We were able to stage the rescue that needed staging. Shepard would—will—consider this a victory."

"At what cost? At no point was I told  _this_  part of a plan." He glanced down at Shepard and Solana looked away, not wanting to play the voyeur; some moments weren't for others to witness. Some grief was too personal for an audience. "Were you? Is this the outcome you expected?"

The asari shook her head, her own grief palpable. "Of course not. But Shepard's been through worse. She'll—of course she'll make it through this."

"Will she? Has she?" Garrus asked. It didn't have the ring of the rhetorical. "You didn't see the war in her eyes before you two showed up. She was a stranger, and a dangerous one. I think she meant to kill me."

"It wasn't personal," said the human, her voice clearer and steadier than her battered appearance would have led Solana to believe it would be. "You merely stood between her and the targets she was intended for. Admiral Hackett. Primarch Victus. Urdnot Wrex. She was a loaded gun pointed at three of the most powerful figures in the galaxy, but the finger that should have been on the trigger was… restrained. Because I restrained it myself. To the best of my ability." The woman took a step toward Shepard, but without the asari's arm to hold her up, she nearly fell. Solana saw her jaw clench, but no other outward sign of pain or discomfort or even of shame creased the woman's features. "Shepard… she should recover. If my calculations—if everything—she should recover from this."

Garrus bent his head. This time it wasn't in despair, but anger. His eyes flashed a warning when he raised them a moment later, but any demand he might have made was curtailed by the door opening to admit Dr. Chakwas and Zaeed. The latter remained outside as a guard, evidently to ensure there would be no untimely interruptions. Chakwas touched his arm gratefully as she entered. The doctor had thrown a jacket over the soft, loose clothing she'd been sleeping in, and though her hair was standing up in a manner completely at odds with her usual polished and professional appearance, her eyes were clear and focused and fixed immediately on the prone figure of Shepard. She didn't pause, didn't so much as look around, heading unerringly for the occupied bed and pulling up the interface of her omni-tool as she walked. Garrus stepped aside, hovering an arm's length away.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You'll have to ask Lawson," Garrus said, the frustration and pain so evident in his subharmonics that Solana flinched. No one else did; she supposed they couldn't hear it the same way she did. Shepard would have reacted, though, she felt certain.  _Please. Please, don't do this to him. Please, not again._

"Law—" Chakwas glanced over her shoulder, caught sight of the newcomers, and her eyes widened. "My God, what have they done to you?"

The name was faintly familiar, but Solana couldn't place a context for it. Before she could follow the niggling thought to any sort of conclusion, Lawson waved a dismissive hand, her mouth twisting. "Superficial and cosmetic, for the most part. Extremely uninspired torture. The Illusive Man could have thought up worse in his sleep."

"Torture?" the doctor gasped, turning away from Shepard to blink her startled surprise Lawson's way. "By  _whom_? And to what purpose?"

Lawson frowned, lifting her chin in the fallen commander's direction and limping, with the asari's help, to the bed opposite. "I'm well enough," she said. "Look to Shepard first. She should merely be sleeping. Very deeply." When her gaze found Solana's, no hint of a question sparked in their blue depths. "You must be Vakarian's sister. Miranda Lawson."

Solana blinked, not able to hide her surprise. "Oh.  _Miranda_. The one they couldn't find. The—the one who left the book."

"Indeed."

"It should not have taken so long," the asari said, and though she didn't have subharmonics, Solana had no trouble picking up the regret. The smile she offered was small and preoccupied. "I'm Liara. Dr. Liara T'Soni. Archeology."

"An archaeologist who finds missing people?" Solana asked. "That's a bit out of the usual purview, isn't it?"

Garrus huffed a breath. It wasn't a laugh. "Liara's also—"

"An information broker," Liara interrupted smoothly.

"An information broker," Garrus repeated, bland. "A very good information broker."

Liara's smile widened slightly, until her gaze caught the commander. Then she ducked her head and bit down on her bottom lip, shoulders slumping. "Not quite good enough, this time, I'm afraid."

"Introductions aside," Chakwas murmured, pushing her free hand back through her sleep-tousled hair and leaving it in even further disarray, "might someone take a few moments to explain what the  _hell_  happened here? She seems well enough—no more broken bones or threats of seizure, at least—but  _comatose_  is not precisely a normal state. If I'm to risk waking her, I need to know what to expect."

Garrus cleared his throat and looked at Chakwas without letting his gaze drift down to the bed. "Shepard and I were separated briefly; she wanted a private conversation with her… mark. I had her in my sights the entire time; I'm certain she wasn't drugged or physically attacked. I… saw her lose her temper."

"Shepard?" Chakwas asked, her tone rising sharply. " _Shepard_  lost her temper?"

Garrus nodded, settling into a kind of easy parade rest, like a soldier giving a report. His subvocals wavered, but not enough to affect the quality of his voice—calm, controlled, dictating facts without editorializing them. "By the time I got back, something strange had happened. She complained about a smell. I didn't detect anything unusual, but there were a lot of people, a lot of perfumes. Some flowers. Then she—changed. Went unnaturally still. Her eyes. I've seen hints of that look in her eyes before, but never directed at me. It was like a switch flipped and all that was left was the… was the killer, without any of the… person."

"A trigger?" Chakwas asked, lifting her omni-tool and tapping notes furiously into it. "The conversation she was having? The smell she complained of?"

"Seems likely. I'll be asking Moira Callahan about it just as soon as the rest of the team assembles."

Because Solana was looking at her closely, she saw the way the doctor froze, like prey sensing an unexpected predator. "Surely not the Moira Callahan Shepard… spent some time with? In her youth?"

Garrus turned to face the doctor fully, crossing his arms over his chest. "You know about that?"

Chakwas smiled a sad smile. "Dear boy, there's little enough I don't know about the commander. Tight-lipped as she is, some things cannot be erased from a personnel file, and a ship doctor's privilege runs deep."

"Surely you noticed that, while Shepard never entirely trusted Chambers, she did—does—trust Karin," Miranda offered mildly. "That trust was something of an anomaly."

"I don't need to be reminded how much maneuvering Cerberus did to placate Shepard," Garrus snapped. "I was present for most of the fallout."

"My presence, at least, wasn't placation," Chakwas insisted. "Certainly not on my part. They approached, I considered, and in the end I—I thought that if they'd managed the impossible, the commander deserved— _needed_ —a friendly face. Especially given her distrust of medical and mental health professionals." She sighed. "Moira Callahan. She would not have appreciated a return of that piece of her past."

"She didn't," Garrus said, with just enough threat to make everyone in the room glance his way. "But Callahan's only part of the problem. Whatever she set in motion, it was Lawson who halted it. Rather definitively. As you see."

"I did wonder what brought these two here. Other than the medical attention Miranda so obviously requires, brave face notwithstanding. What happened?"

"Lawson told Shepard to stop, and she dropped." His gaze hardened as it found Miranda. "Why?"

Miranda glanced down at her hands, though her expression gave little away. When she lifted her eyes again, she met Garrus' frustration head-on, as though it were something familiar. Perhaps it was. Solana wasn't sure she could have been as unmoved in the face of it. "Conflicting programming," Miranda said. "I'm—I'm sorry. It was the only thing I could think of."

Garrus' eyes narrowed. "You keep apologizing, but you've neglected to mention what for. What the hell did you do, Lawson? Exactly?"

"Is this a conversation you mean to have in present company?"

Her brother's mandibles pulled tight to his cheeks, though he gave no other outward sign of his annoyance. Miranda sighed and turned a pointed look Solana's way.

"Sorry," Solana said, "I'll leave."

"Stay," Garrus ordered. Solana found herself curbing the urge to salute.

Miranda frowned. "Can we—"

"Don't finish that thought," Garrus said, so calmly it made a shiver run the length of Solana's spine. Miranda acquiesced with a slight inclination of her head. Solana wasn't sure she'd ever seen a war come to a swifter resolution.

"How much does she—" At Garrus' immovable frown, Liara turned to Solana and rephrased the question. "How much are you aware of?"

Solana shrugged uncomfortably. "I helped Shepard with the book Miranda left," she replied. "I know she suspected some kind of deep corruption and she—they—she and my brother decided to, uh, manipulate things on the ground. To draw out that poison, as it were."

"Poison," Miranda mused. "Accurate enough."

"I was still looking for Miranda," Liara added. "And had been ever since Garrus first asked me to locate her. I kept running into dead ends. Very suspicious ones. When Kaidan arrived he explained that Shepard wanted me to very obviously look in several of the wrong directions, in the hopes of deflecting some attention from my real aim. And hers." A pained spasm contorted her face. "He also told me how recalcitrant Maya Brooks had been. I apologize, Garrus. It wasn't my intention to make things worse."

Garrus flicked his mandibles and Liara shrugged, answering his silent question. "I found her in an Alliance lockup. Plotting her escape, no doubt. She—whatever else she is, you have to admit she knows... the mechanics of Shepard. I wasn't certain how… how badly off Shepard might be. I thought you could… convince Brooks to help, if she proved reluctant." The asari's wide eyes found Solana and her lips turned up in a faint smile. "Your brother can be… very convincing."

Solana snorted, but couldn't quite bring herself to smile in return; just now her brother looked very menacing indeed. Grimacing, he said, "Brooks is a damned parasite, Liara. But I… suppose I understand. And it was good of you to enlist Samara. Brooks will trifle with anyone and anything, but Samara, at least, appears to be immune to her."

A little relief stole some of the tension from Liara's expression. "Oh, thank the Goddess. I did hope as much."

"And Shepard?" Chakwas urged. "Miranda?"

Miranda's brow furrowed, and she clenched the edge of the gurney. "They—Moira and her ilk—told me they had my sister. That they'd taken her in when the war displaced her. It was plausible. I knew about Shepard's years between Mindoir and the Alliance, of course; she never spoke of it, but I'd seen the same confidential files Karin referred to. And I… I owed Shepard." She took a deep breath, audible in silence broken only by the faint hum of machinery. "They already had her by the time they brought me in. I imagine they wouldn't have involved me if they weren't at loose ends. She was… not well. Perhaps not as mortally injured as she was after Alchera, but it was a near thing." White-knuckled, she glanced at the ceiling, then over to Shepard once again. "They didn't just want me to heal her body. They demanded I plant suggestions. Commands."

"Brainwash her," Garrus growled.

Miranda nodded. "They wanted her for a purpose, Garrus. It was that purpose or death. It would have been worse if they'd attempted to do the work themselves; I was able to mitigate the damage. Though I fear Shepard will not thank me for it when she learns the method. They wanted one thing. I wanted something else, without it looking like I'd tampered with their plans. I was trying as best I could to protect her."

"Oh, Miranda." Chakwas pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, but did not look wholly surprised. "You didn't."

"Shepard told you, then."

"Like I said: I earned her trust. She told me. Wanted me to make certain you hadn't done it anyway."

"You wouldn't have found it then, even if you'd looked." Miranda's steely gaze slipped, dropped, and she bowed her head. "I knew it would have to be undetectable. And not removable. Or else what would have been the point?" When she raised her head, she wore the look of a prisoner facing her execution with as much dignity as she could muster. "During my work on the Lazarus Project, I wanted to implant Shepard with a control chip. To ensure her compliance. Her loyalty. The Illusive Man overruled me then, but I… had the technology. So this time I used it."

"You did  _what_?" Garrus snarled, his fists clenched as though just looking—just  _begging_ —for a target to hit.

Though a little of the ice in Miranda's eyes had melted, she was still resolute. "I didn't have time to come up with a better plan," she explained. "If I'd had months, a year… perhaps. They watched me so closely. I told them it was a broken but necessary piece of her cybernetics and then I programmed the chip to override the orders to kill. I knew it was flawed. I'm still not certain what would have happened if I hadn't been present to give the command to stop in person. I—I couldn't account for all the variables."

Garrus went carefully and quietly still. "And, what? This new Cerberus, or Terra Firma, or humanity first group wanted Shepard discredited? Is that why they had her… reprogrammed? Is that why they wanted to turn the Hero of the Galaxy into its destroyer? To buy time for themselves in the ensuing confusion?"

"Oh, Garrus," Miranda said softly. "Moira Callahan may be the figurehead of a paltry and relatively powerless new humanity first initiative, but she's a pawn as much as Shepard is. She just doesn't realize it. Neither of them do. If only Shepard had left well-enough alone. Turned back. Let those sleeping dogs lie. Don't you understand? They know her. They've known her for months. You've--surely you've read the reports. You were  _there_ , for God's sake. What better deflection, what better way to stir up the chaos needed to reestablish themselves as the unchallenged overlords of the galaxy? By turning Shepard against her own allies, they all but ensured that chaos. By the time the species stopped fighting amongst themselves, the Leviathans would be firmly and completely in control once again."

"No," Garrus said, so numb and so hollow his subharmonics gave Solana no clues at all. She shivered, cold for no good reason. No one met anyone else's eyes.

"They have been patient. Shepard woke them, pressed them into the fight. Now? Now they want their due," Miranda insisted. "Tribute does not flow from—"

"A dead race," Garrus said. He stared at Miranda for another long moment, wearing an expression of intense query Solana was far more used to seeing on her father's face. Finally, with careful crispness, he asked, "Are you compromised, Lawson?"

For the first time, Solana saw fear in the woman's eyes, and her cheeks paled further beneath the bruises. "I don't think so. But how can I know? How can any of us know? Did Shepard? Do you?"

"Spirits," Garrus whispered, bowing his head and lifting a hand to hide his eyes. "Spirits, Shepard, what have we done?"


	51. With the Turning Tide

In the dreadful silence that followed, Garrus knew they were all looking to him for something. Answers. Hope. Leadership. The hand Shepard always seemed able to play so effortlessly, no matter what shit cards she’d been dealt. His plates itched under the weight of those gazes, and when he blinked, he saw ten bodies, ten body-bags, ten pools of blood in rainbow hues painted on the backs of his eyelids. _They’d_ looked to him for answers and hope and leadership, too. He’d even thought himself capable of giving it. Some of it, in any case. He’d known how to prepare and plan and execute precise strikes against merc bands and drug dealers without compromising civilian safety, without losing civilian lives, and in the end it hadn’t mattered. He’d still walked into the trap, that worst possible outcome, the one he’d never prepared or planned for. Kron Harga and Thralog Mirki’it and Rhi’hesh Shurta were nothing. Insects. Insignificant compared to the Leviathans, who could potentially make an unwilling Sidonis of anyone their insidious brand of indoctrination touched. They might be using Shepard against him right now; they might even be using him against her. Any one of them might be compromised. He didn’t have the first idea how to solve that equation. His gut twisted just thinking about it. He’d thought the calculus of the Reaper war ruthless, but it was nothing, nothing to an ambush as sly and subtle and devastating as this.

He’d broken his own damned cardinal rule. He’d lost count of his enemies. He’d even thought the battle ended, the hostiles cleared. _Scoped and dropped._ And now he was looking death in the eye. Again. Worse, perhaps. Enslavement. Erasure. A longer death, a slower one, without nobility, without meaning. _Tribute does not flow from a dead race. They’ll use us and bleed us and in the end we’ll die emptier than husks, without remembering what freedom tasted like, smelled like. Maybe even without remembering we’re dying prisoners. Slaves._

He turned away from Shepard because what he most wanted to do was look to her. For answers. Hope. Leadership. Things she wasn’t in any position to provide. She might wake to a world where she thought she was eighteen and turians— _he_ —made her uneasy. She might never wake at all, no matter what Miranda thought, no matter how many platitudes were spoken. She could wake with only the killer in her eyes. Or she’d wake to the reality of Miranda’s tech in her head, and a leash—lightly held, perhaps, but a leash all the same—around her neck. It pained him not to know which of these was the outcome he dreaded most.

Liara’s large eyes swam with tears, and Garrus couldn’t even pretend to have Shepard’s patience for them. Not right now. Not while looking down the barrel at yet another turn of events the Shadow Broker had failed to predict. Like Udina’s coup. Like Thessia. Like a damned _clone of Shepard_ running around making trouble at the behest of a former Cerberus operative posing as an Alliance intelligence officer. For starters. He wanted to blame her, wanted to vent his rage, and even though he knew how crippled she was by limited experience and limited means and intel limited by galaxy-wide breakdowns in communication, she still made for a convenient target. He looked away quickly.

Miranda only looked tired, as though finally giving her dire report had wrung the remaining life out of her. She leaned heavily against one of the beds, shoulders slumped, gazing at a spot between her feet. She was no stranger to tactics and logistics; he knew she must be running the same hideous numbers and worst case scenarios as he. By her expression, her math must be just as grim.

Chakwas hovered over Shepard, her hands held wide, helpless to fix the very deepest parts that were broken; Garrus didn’t think he’d ever seen her look quite so hopeless, which was saying something, given the things she’d seen and the wounds she’d tended. “Shall I—” Chakwas began haltingly, her fingers opening and closing as though reaching for some phantom instrument _._ Too well Garrus remembered what had happened the last time Shepard woke to see the doctor coming at her with a syringe, and he shook his head.

“Let her sleep,” Garrus said, startled by the sound of his own voice, rough and weary. Old. As hopeless as everyone else looked. Chakwas’ hands dropped, and she didn’t quite meet his eyes. He must be as uncomfortable to look at as Liara, as Miranda, as Shepard herself. “For now. Look after Lawson first. We’re going to need…” The words froze on his tongue, but he only swallowed and pushed harder, straining to channel some ghost of Shepard. “If we’re going to take on a threat like this, everyone needs to be at full strength.”

The _how_ was loud, impossibly loud, for all it went unvoiced. Shepard might have made a joke, might have said something self-deprecating. Something about fighting Reapers on foot, maybe, or flying blind through the Omega-4, or relying on thresher maws to do the heavy Reaper killing. He remembered the empty look in her eyes and the blood trickling from her nose at the party, and could say nothing.

Solana’s eyes also scanned the room, carefully tracking from person to person, and Garrus found himself wondering what she saw, and how different her interpretation of those observations might be from his own. She finally lifted her gaze to meet his, and rubbed a hand along the side of her neck, a gesture of their mother’s he knew they’d both adopted as nervous habit. The recollection was all the more painful for being unexpected. “Sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m lost. What’s a Leviathan? And why did the mention of it, uh, do what it did to the atmosphere in here?”

The sound that escaped him wasn’t a laugh. It wasn’t even a cry. He didn’t know what, exactly, it was, except that it made his sister’s eyes widen and her mandibles flare, and she shifted halfway upright onto her good foot before he managed to wave her back down again. “They’re—” Garrus found himself at a loss for words, unable to give voice to the magnitude of the threat. How could nonchalance or confidence be feigned, when the words that lodged in his throat were: _You thought the Reapers were bad?_ _Well, now meet the unknowable force of that enemy’s creators. And this time there’re no convenient blueprints for a weapon of mass destruction to end them._ He cleared his throat, but didn’t scrub anxiously at the side of his own neck the way every muscle in his body urged him to. His subharmonics quavered alarmingly as he said, “They’re the race that invented the Reapers. More or less.”

Solana blinked, and he saw her visibly swallow her disbelief. A little of it colored her subvocals as she said, “More or less? _More or less_? How can that be—how did they—”

“EDI,” Miranda said, as crisp and efficient as ever she’d been when the _Normandy_ had brighter lights, less visible wiring, and she was both XO and Cerberus’ key informant. Shepard had won her over. Shepard could do that. But Spirits only knew what had been digging around in Miranda’s mind while she was busy messing with Shepard’s. The prickle of paranoia made him shudder. _Is it paranoia if it’s entirely possible? Probable, even?_ “Forward all pertinent information about the Leviathans to Solana’s omni-tool.” Her expression was bland. “It isn’t much, but it’s something.”

If Garrus had thought the silence couldn’t be any heavier, he was swiftly proven wrong. Liara bowed her head, not meeting Garrus’ querying look. Solana lifted a confused shoulder. The crease of a frown appeared between Miranda’s brows. “What is it?” Miranda asked.

Garrus answered, “EDI went offline when the Crucible fired. Evidently Liara neglected to mention it.”

The furrow deepened. “And you haven’t repaired her? Surely—”

“The way you _repaired_ Shepard?” Garrus snapped. Instead of flinching, Miranda only stiffened, raising her chin defiantly. “Is that your answer for everything? Reach under the hood, cross some wires, and hope for the best?”

“I did what I—”

Garrus’ hands curled into fists with nothing to hit and he snapped, “Maybe make sure you’ve got a few convenient backups?”

“Garrus—” Chakwas began, only to wince and fall silent again at whatever she saw on his face.

Miranda, however, rose to the challenge, faint color in her cheeks almost giving her the appearance of her former health under the bruises. “I only worked on—with—Shepard, Garrus. She _is_ Shepard. I had nothing to do with that other… facet of the project. It was done without my knowledge. Or consent.”

“Without _your_ consent,” Garrus scoffed. “As if yours was the consent that mattered. You actually believe that, don’t you? That you were right to do what you did. You played deity when it wasn’t your business, and you’ve been scrambling to deal with the repercussions ever since. Still are.”

“You’d rather Shepard died on Alchera? You on Omega? The galaxy, when the Reapers came? Because I assure you—”

“Don’t pretend you did what you did for selfless reasons. You wanted a weapon.”

“And what if we did?” Miranda snapped. “The galaxy needed a weapon. Shepard was far too valuable an asset. You know that. You’ve benefited from her recovery as much as I.”

Chakwas didn’t come between them, but she did insist, “It is hardly the time for this conversation, Miranda, Garrus.” Caught up in the heat of words left too long unspoken, they ignored her.

“She is a person, Lawson, not a _project._ Not a damned _asset._ ” He stepped closer, too close, close enough to see her pulse in her throat jump, even if he didn’t already have his visor informing him that it was elevated. “She will not thank you for this.”

“If you want me to regret saving her life—either time—I’m afraid you are in for a long wait.” Miranda’s glare was icy, but that, at least, was familiar enough territory. Like the detective he’d once been, he wanted to build an iron-clad and irrefutable case against her, against her interference, but all his evidence was inadmissible. Shepard wouldn’t thank _him_ for revealing her closely-guarded fears, her questions, her secrets, her doubts—the things he only knew precisely because she trusted his discretion. Trusted him. He wanted to howl. Instead he only closed his eyes and listened to his own heartbeat thud.

“Garrus?” Liara asked softly, settling a hand on his shoulder. “Are you—”

“Fine,” Garrus replied tersely, without giving her the chance to finish her question. He shrugged out from under her hand, but imagined he could still feel the weight of her touch dragging at him, pulling him under. Drowning him. She didn’t quite flinch when he said, “You were on Namakli. You know what we’re dealing with here. I want you and Tali to scour the ship. Look in every crate, behind every panel, in all the maintenance shafts. If one of the Leviathan’s artifacts has been planted on this ship, we need to find it and we need to neutralize it before it can do any more damage. It was originally EDI’s work, but Tali should be able to figure out how EDI rigged that shield in Bryson’s lab.” Garrus paced to the door of the AI Core and paused. “I want her to see about designing some kind of personal shield that can work with omni-tools or armor. We’re already a dozen steps behind; we need some kind of protection. If it’s even possible.”

“Let me look at the data,” Solana offered. “I’m not exactly up for crawling through confined spaces, but weapons and armor mods I can do.”

Further conversation was interrupted by the door opening. His father and Alenko flanked Zaeed. None of them looked particularly pleased. Alenko deflated a little when he glanced toward Shepard, but he said nothing. He didn’t need to. Garrus threw a nod his sister’s way as he headed for the door. “Speed would be good, Sol, but thoroughness is more important. You’ll understand when you read the reports. Full access, Liara. Understood?” He didn’t wait for Liara’s acquiescence.

“Garrus,” Miranda said. He paused at the door and glanced at her over his shoulder. Her gaze was clear, but her lips frowning. “You can’t just stage a frontal assault. Moira Callahan has deep connections and a lot of money.”

“Neither of which will help her right now,” Garrus said. “Unless she’s got deep connections in the _Normandy_ ’s observation lounge.”

“Don’t underestimate her.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

Miranda didn’t look convinced, but she bent her head, and did not raise her voice to speak again. Garrus allowed himself a last look at Shepard. She hadn’t moved. One hand hung over the side of the bed, the fingers faintly curled, as if beckoning him closer, but instead he turned away, and the door closed behind him.

“She’ll be fine,” Alenko said after a moment. The waver of uncertainty in his voice was unmistakable. Garrus almost hated him for it.

“You don’t know that,” Garrus retorted. It wasn’t what Shepard would have said; he saw the light of hope flicker and fade from Alenko’s eyes. He almost hated him for that, too. Turning away, Garrus found no such false hope in his father’s gaze. His father knew endings. His father knew what it was like to see hope not just fade, but die completely, with no possibility of miraculous resurrection. And his father knew how to keep going, afterward. Garrus found this strangely reassuring. “No one knows that. And she wouldn’t want either of us dwelling on it when there’s work to be done.” He paused. “I want you to take point on this one, Alenko.”

Alenko’s eyebrows lifted in startled surprise. “You sure?”

Garrus nodded once, brisk and businesslike. “You’re an unknown quantity, and you’ve got authority. Use it. Let my dad back you up.”

His father glanced his way, asking a silent question. Garrus’ reply was little more than an acquiescent blink, but his dad straightened and became _Detective Vakarian, Citadel Security_ instantly. “Have you conducted many interrogations?”

Alenko shook his head, opening a helpless palm. “Not my usual purview, sir.”

His father didn’t question and didn’t criticize. He merely inclined his head and linked his hands loosely behind his back, the deceptively relaxed posture Garrus remembered from early days in C-Sec, when he was just another new recruit who needed rules and regulations pounded into his reluctant head, and his father the superior officer best capable of giving that lecture. Alenko, already standing straight, pulled himself even straighter. “Doubtless you’re familiar with the… how do humans phrase it?”

“Good cop, bad cop,” Garrus offered. “Alenko was born to play good cop.”

Alenko’s lips turned up in the palest of smiles, but it was tempered with the seriousness of the task at hand. “And if you’re the bad cop, sir, how does Garrus fit into the dynamic?”

“Garrus is about to snap and throw anything resembling due process out the nearest airlock.” His father shrugged, his subvocals tinged with resignation. “With no paperwork to fill out, I think you’ll find it makes for a startlingly effective tactic.”

Any last hint of Alenko’s smile died.

“I’m just going to observe,” Garrus insisted. “And throwing someone out the airlock isn’t the same threat when you’re not in space. She’d just end up muddy.”

Alenko didn’t laugh. Not that Garrus had expected him to. As jokes went, it was a pathetic one. “Are you armed?”

Garrus held his empty hands wide, and then gestured at his formal attire. “No room for a rifle.”

“And yet somehow I don’t think that little detail would stop you, if you were really determined to put an end to her.”

Garrus snorted. “You’re learning, Alenko. But I can be patient, too. Today’s a good day for patience, I think.”

_Too much at stake._

_That_ was something Shepard might’ve said. Garrus kept it to himself.

Alenko nodded. At his side, his hand twitched just slightly, as though wanting to salute, but knowing it wasn’t the right gesture. Instead, he turned on a heel, heading briskly away. Garrus and his father followed a step or two behind.

“Garrus?”

It wasn’t a demand or a command, and Garrus debated not stopping. He knew he could do it, could just follow Alenko into the observation lounge without pause, pretending not to have heard his father’s soft query.

He stopped. Half-turned. And saw only genuine concern in his father’s eyes, without hint of disappointment or reproof. “She—we anticipated this possibility,” Garrus admitted. “You know we did. And I still hoped it wouldn’t come to it. Feels foolish now, hoping. It was better before, when I expected the worst and was pleasantly surprised when something good happened instead.”

“Will she recover?”

“Even if she wakes up as… as she was, some things are different. Perhaps irreparably.”

“You’ll adapt. She’ll adapt.” His father didn’t blink, didn’t flinch; his voice didn’t waver. “It’s cold comfort, I know, but it’s what life does. Adapt.”

“Are you worried I won’t be able to keep it together in there?”

“Should I be?”

Garrus swept a hand back over his fringe to hide his momentary discomfort, his momentary uncertainty. “I don’t know.” His mandibles fluttered briefly. “It’d piss her off if I didn’t, though.”

His father nodded, but his expression turned strange and wistful in a way Garrus felt certain he’d never seen before. It transformed the weary landscape of his father’s face into something else entirely, like a ghost of the younger man he must once have been, looking through his eyes into a future he couldn’t have anticipated. “There’s so much of her in you.”

“Shepard?” Garrus asked, startled. “Hardly.”

“Your mother.” He shook his head sadly. “Your determination and independence, certainly. Your temper is hers, and your sense of humor.” The wistfulness dissipated. “I always knew when she wasn’t telling me the whole truth, too.”

“Dad…”

His father settled a hand on his shoulder, but Garrus didn’t pull away from this touch. It was solid, grounding. For the first time since Miranda made Shepard collapse, since Shepard asked _My God, Garrus, what’s that smell?_ he felt a little of the seething rage just under his plates ebb. “And I’ll tell you what I told her,” his father added. “You don’t have to tell me anything. Not now. Not ever. But if you want someone to listen, I’m here.”

Garrus huffed a breath almost like a laugh. “Spirits, Dad. This is no way to set yourself up as bad cop.”

“I don’t know about that, son,” his father said, with an undercurrent of faint amusement. “Unsettling the subject is always solid technique.”

Garrus did chuckle at this, before standing aside and allowing his father to step into the observation lounge ahead of him. If the weight on his shoulders hadn’t precisely lessened, at least now he felt it was a load he might have some help carrying.


	52. Rattled By the Rat's Foot

“About fucking time,” Jack muttered, pushing herself away from the bar as soon as Garrus entered. He was a little surprised to see no open bottle, no dirtied glass. “I wanted to blast this bitch straight to hell five minutes after meeting her, and the feeling’s only getting stronger.”

Given how long Jack had been in here alone with her, Garrus was a little surprised to see Moira Callahan still alive. He said nothing, however, and he tried to let neither relief nor disappointment ruffle his expression. Jack shifted her stance, crossing her arms over her chest and fixing him with a look mixed of equal parts confusion, annoyance, and disgust. It wasn’t all that different an expression than the one she usually wore, but the concern in the lowered tilt of her brows was new, and he didn’t miss the flicker of distaste as Alenko strode to the center of the room, obviously taking charge. She hardly gave Garrus’ father a second glance. If she’d been the subject of the interrogation, Garrus would’ve marked this as her first mistake. Exactly the kind his father preferred.

Before Garrus could finish silently counting to three, his father ordered, “Out. Now.” Or, rather, Kaius Vakarian ordered it. Tough as he’d sometimes been, this wasn’t his dad. This was Detective Vakarian, Citadel Security Investigation Division, who—rumor had it, and Garrus knew for truth—had scared more than one perp quite literally shitless. Some rookie C-Sec officers, too. Hell. Some veterans, though none of them ever admitted it.

Jack blinked, her lip curling in a disbelieving sneer. Garrus, bland as he knew how to be, lifted a shoulder, and then looked away, as though the view through the observation deck’s window—it was raining again—was more interesting than anything she might have to say.

“The fuck?” Jack retorted, her voice rising on the second syllable, both a question and a warning. Garrus wasn’t sure if it was meant for him or for his father.

Where Jack was a grenade beeping its last warning before detonating, Garrus’ father remained stolid and implacable, meeting her sputtering rage with cool disapproval. It took some effort not to wince in sympathy as his father said, “It was not a request. And I am not in the habit of repeating myself.”

Jack’s lips parted slightly, even as her eyebrows reached for her hairline and the tips of her fingers began to spark ever so faintly blue. Moira Callahan, Garrus noted, smiled slightly, watching his father with gratitude, and doubtless already preparing a speech thanking him for coming to her rescue. Garrus swallowed the derisive laugh burning in the back of his throat. Jack took a step away from the bar, her right hand rising in a distinctly confrontational manner. “Yeah? Well, I don’t say things twice when once’ll do either, asshole. If you think I’m letting this bitch out of my sight after what she did to Shepard, you’ve got another thing coming. Something like a fucking biotic uppercut to your smug—”

Alenko raised a hand, less confrontational than Jack, but effective enough to warrant a pause even if no hint of biotic blue played around his fingers. “That’s enough, Jack. Vakarian.”

“You think I can’t take both of you? Just give me a fucking excuse.”

“You are no more than an angry child,” his father said. “This is no place for children.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Moira’s shoulders began to relax, and the smile brightened her eyes.

“You misunderstand,” Alenko went on, as though explaining something simple to someone being deliberately obtuse. “You’re not leaving. Detective Vakarian’s not leaving.” He turned a cool expression on Moira. “No one’s leaving until I get some answers.”

Moira stiffened as though struck, and her lips froze in their premature smile before the pleased expression shattered like bullet-hit glass. Her knuckles whitened, but she smoothly turned the twitch of her hands into a fold, straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin haughtily. No one, Garrus thought, looked particularly impressed. _Playing to an audience already determined to hate the show_ , he imagined Shepard saying. It wasn’t quite her voice in his head, but it was close enough to sting, close enough to hurt. Close enough to make him wonder if seeing what he’d seen in Shepard’s eyes had sent him spiraling backward again, if his own grip on reality was, perhaps, as tenuous as hers appeared to be. He inhaled, long and slow, holding his breath at the apex until the burn of it grounded him again.

“I have a right to counsel,” Moira said, with the kind of petulant arrogance that raised questions about how Jack had possibly managed to keep her cool as long as she’d done. He was pretty sure the Jack before Grissom Academy would’ve left nothing more than a bloodstain in her wake, without a second’s hesitation or a moment’s regret. Answers or no answers.

Garrus had to hand it to Alenko, he didn’t miss a beat. He stepped just close enough to make both his position of superiority and his potential as a threat perfectly clear and said in a low voice, “If these were normal circumstances, perhaps. But I’m afraid they aren’t. You and I are going to have a conversation.”

“I don’t have to talk to you. I know Alliance protocol, and Citadel Security holds no jurisdiction here. I get a lawyer. Fortunately I have a very good one on retainer. I would like to see her now.”

“Fuck this,” Jack said. “Fuck you. And definitely fuck _lawyers_. What the _fuck_ did you do to Shepard?”

Alenko and Moira Callahan both ignored her. Her hands glowed blue for a moment, but she only rolled her eyes and turned away, setting her palms flat against the bar’s surface until the biotic light ebbed. The Jack before Grissom Academy wouldn’t have had that control, either. Garrus understood her frustration all too intimately, but held his own position, leaning against the wall near the door with his arms crossed to keep from physically removing the unbearably smug expression from Moira’s face. If Jack could rein it in, so could he.

A corner of Alenko’s mouth turned up in a knowing smile Garrus recognized as one pulled directly from Shepard’s _mess with me and I’ll mess with you_ repertoire. He wore it surprisingly well. “I see you’re under some misapprehension about what’s going on here, Mrs. Callahan.”

One pale brow arched as if Alenko had said something distasteful and she couldn’t believe her ears. “Only inasmuch as you’re under some misapprehension about just who I am and how much—”

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he interrupted. “I’m Kaidan Alenko.” He didn’t sit, didn’t bring himself down to her level. She was forced to crane her head back to look at him. Garrus tried not to think about the wide open target that left of her bare neck. _You know what else is bad for business…_ “Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. We have reason to believe you kidnapped and tampered with one of our agents. Under these circumstances, you’ll find very little authority exceeds my own.”

If she felt dismay, her expression betrayed nothing of it. Garrus supposed foolishness and bravery could share a number of characteristics, but in this case he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and credit her with the latter. He couldn’t find a shred of anything but dislike for her, of course—Shepard hated so rarely he couldn’t help trusting her judgment—but he began to suspect some of the steel in Shepard had been forged at this woman’s anvil. Whether by necessity or observation, he wasn’t certain. Perhaps, in the end, it would only be another reason to despise her.

Instead of arguing or pitching a fit, Moira settled back in her chair, crossing her ankles, and running her palms down the shimmering satin of her lap. The jewels on her fingers glittered. She lacked only a glass of champagne to complete the picture of decadent ease. The smile returned. “There’s been a misunderstanding, Spectre Alenko,” she said with graciousness so perfect Garrus knew it had to be feigned. Jack’s eyes narrowed. If Alenko had feelings about Moira’s new tactic, none of them showed on his face. Garrus’ father stood just behind Moira, a wall of intransigence, close enough to be menacing but not yet a weapon to be used.

“Then you won’t mind if we analyze your perfume. Witnesses claim Commander Shepard was disturbed by a smell, and you were, by all accounts, standing very near her at the time. You’ll also be certain to allow us full access to your properties and holdings, and you’ll comply with any and all requests we make of you or your people. Since there’s been a misunderstanding, as you say, and you are perfectly innocent of any wrongdoing.”

“Of course I’m innocent,” Moira said. “Kidnapping? My dear boy, we _rescued_ her. Just in time, I might add.” She sighed and began to rise, as if this assertion was enough to clear her name. She’d forgotten the turian behind her, however, and before she could get to her feet, a heavy hand landed on her shoulder, sending her gracelessly back into her chair. Her lips twisted with disgust, though she didn’t quite jerk out from under the restraining digits. Jack smiled with something like contentment. If contentment could be so dangerous. Without deigning to acknowledge the hand, Moira added, “You are no doubt intimately familiar with military bureaucracy. By the time the left hand finished deciding it was appropriate for the right to act, I assure you, you’d have been recovering a corpse. My actions required no miles of red tape or orders copied in triplicate.”

“Convenient,” Alenko said, turning his hands over and lifting his shoulders in a mild shrug, “that you happened to be in exactly the right place at the right time. Your son was stationed in London, I believe. I trust he was the source of your excellent intelligence?”

“You cannot tell me you’d have done differently.” Her eyes flicked to Garrus, and her brows lifted in silent challenge. Garrus met that gaze, but impassively, giving nothing, and after a moment she raised a hand and gave her fingers a dismissive wave. This injured him more than the woman’s misplaced defiance, though he tried not to show it; he’d seen Shepard banish importunate reporters and bothersome politicians with precisely the same gesture countless times. “Consider his position. Scattered fleets. Downed communications. That blast of energy that destroyed every unnatural creature in its path. He knew I had resources the Alliance simply couldn’t muster. Of course he contacted me. He knew I had the capacity to do what the Alliance wasn’t in the position to accomplish.”

“Yeah, you’re a real fucking hero,” Jack snapped. “Leaving her fucked up and alone on that pile of shit junkship in the middle of nowhere, with her memory like swiss cheese. Just tell me where to send the fucking medal.”

“Not my decision,” Moira insisted. “The offending parties have since been terminated.”

Alenko rocked back on his heels. “You _admit_ you had them killed?” 

Moira’s eerie, too-delicate laugh made Garrus’ plates itch. She leaned forward, her nose twitching like a varren scenting blood and desperate for a kill. “Their employment. Through appropriate, legal, non-lethal channels. You are, of course, welcome to contact them. I trust you’ll find them duly repentant. But most definitely alive. Honestly, I suspect one of them may have had ignoble intentions from the beginning. Perhaps you’ll be able to ferret out the truth where we failed.” A crease marred her unnaturally unlined forehead. It looked forced, but it did glaze her face with a patina of sympathy. “You must understand I would _never_ have treated her so callously. My God. She’s practically a _daughter_ to me.”

Garrus, unlike Alenko, had conducted enough interrogations—of both perfect and dubious legality—to feel the unpleasant shift of power in the room. His father evidently felt it, too, because the rumble of his voice when he spoke held more than a hint of threat. “One might question your use of the word _practically_ , Mrs. Callahan.” She twitched, but didn’t look at him. “One might even assume that, juxtaposed as it is with the others, it destroys the sentiment altogether.” His hand, still resting on her shoulder, tightened, crinkling the smooth fabric beneath it. A muscle in her jaw jumped, and this time she did attempt to free herself. Unsuccessfully.

Alenko collected himself in this moment of reprieve, casually linking his hands behind his back. “Moira. Can I call you Moira?”

“I’d prefer—“

“Moira,” Alenko repeated, narrowing his eyes. “Out there you may be a woman of some consequence. I don’t doubt you are. But in here? You are nothing. And you are no one. No one is coming for you. You do understand that, don’t you?” The only indication of understanding was a slight thinning of her lips. Alenko nodded as if she’d answered in a manner he approved of. Perhaps she had. “Thus far, I’ve been civil. I have asked questions and you have given me lies for answers. I have no patience for lies, Moira, and no patience for liars.”

Without warning, without even the flicker of blue sparks that had betrayed Jack, Alenko flung his hand out, lifted a bottle of liquor—hopefully the undrinkable dextro brandy—and flung it across the room. It passed close enough to Moira’s head to ruffle her perfect blonde bob before shattering against the far wall with a shrill crack. Cloying alcoholic sweetness filled the room, strong as a fist to the gut. Alenko’s mild expression never flickered, never changed, never gave even a hint at what thoughts were playing out behind it. “I am the only thing standing between you and everyone else in this room, on this ship, and I alone hold the power to save you from them. Or, alternatively, to expunge from the record anything they might do to you if your answers continue to disappoint.”

Because he was looking for it, Garrus watched the war rage behind the mask she wore. In the end, she inclined her head slightly, and a little of her defiance ebbed. He even thought it might be honest. “Very well, Spectre,” she said. “You’ve made yourself clear.”

“What were your plans for the commander?” Alenko asked evenly. “And please, don’t insult either of us by claiming it was merely a well-intentioned rescue. A rescuer would have brought her planetside immediately, and handed her over to qualified medical personnel. A rescuer wouldn’t have sent DNA and dog tags, or led the Alliance on a scavenger hunt to find her.”

“I bought her,” Moira said simply, as if the words weren’t horrifying, as if she were only discussing ownership of a property or a particularly fine skycar. “She’s mine. She needed to remember that.”

Silence, abrupt and heavy and sick, followed. Garrus kept his arms locked across his chest, but couldn’t stop his hands from curling into fists. Jack’s lips parted; he thought they formed a voiceless expletive. Alenko blinked, and this time a flash of blue did echo around hands as angry as Garrus’.

“Explain,” Detective Vakarian barked.

Moira smiled, sharp as broken glass. It left ragged cuts. “She was such a good girl. Quiet. Polite. Always listening. _Remembering._ My God, what she could have accomplished.”

Garrus spoke before he could stop himself, “I hardly think Shepard’s list of accomplishments is lacking.” He thought the look Alenko shot him was meant to be quelling, but instead it just smacked of desperation.

“Explain,” his father repeated. “Now.” A shiver ran the length of Garrus’ spine, and he wasn’t sure if it was a chill at Moira Callahan’s coldness, or his father’s anger. 

Though it cost her the last semblance of indifference, Moira took this moment to pull herself roughly away from the grip that held her. In the same motion, she turned and rose, glowering contempt and seething rebellion. “I am not afraid of you.”

“You should be,” he said. “If you knew my feelings on slavery, I assure you, you would be.”

“Slavery,” she scoffed. “Please. Three times I’ve pulled that girl out of the fire, and how does she repay me? Silence. Defiance. Open hostility.”

“What do you mean, three times?” Alenko asked sharply, before Garrus could find his voice to snarl the same question. “Shepard insists she’s had no voluntary contact with you since the day she enlisted.”

“I daresay orphanages seem romantic; in practice they are anything but. We opened doors for her, offered her the whole bloody world. And she spat on it. She spat on us. Because she’s an ungrateful child.” This time the gesture of her hand wasn’t dismissive, it was cutting. “And whether you approve of my choices or not, it _was_ a rescue this last time, and I defy the Alliance to have provided the medical care I did, without access to this ship and its doctor. You think a common field medic could have put her back together? You know what she is.”

“What about the second time?” Garrus asked, unable to mask the hum of dread in his subharmonics.

“But you already know,” she said, turning the force of that cutting smile on him. What he saw in her eyes made him want to take the words back, swallow them, blow them up. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. “Four billion credits is so _very_ much money. Where the hell did you think Cerberus _got it from_?” She laughed again, and Garrus indulged in a moment of imagining just what he’d have to do to her in order to balance the scales, because death was too kind a fate.

 _Follow the money,_ he thought. _But we didn’t. Not far enough._ Another cardinal rule of investigation. Another mistake. Another fucking failure. “And Maya Brooks? Did you bankroll her endeavors, too?”

“If at first you don’t succeed,” Moira murmured. “Offer someone with exceptional skills and dubious morality a great deal of money.”

“But it was never a plan that made any _sense_ ,” Alenko insisted. “You could never have hoped to dupe—“

Before he could finish, Moira was enveloped in a bubble of blue light, lifted, and thrown. Against the wall and directly into the puddle of liquor left behind by Alenko’s earlier demonstration. Moira’s head made a horrible-sounding thud that echoed through the silent room.

“Damn it, Jack,” Garrus said without heat, allowing himself a moment to enjoy the awkward tangle of satin-clad limbs because his visor told him Moira was merely stunned and not dead. “We weren’t finished with her.”

“I didn’t fucking kill her,” Jack retorted, tugging on the hem of her jacket and flashing Garrus a feral, satisfied grin. “And don’t think that didn’t take effort.”

Alenko sighed and pushed a hand back through his hair, leaving it in uncharacteristic disarray. “Can’t say it wasn’t on all our minds,” he admitted.

“Still the behavior of a child,” Garrus’ father admonished, though the truth in his subvocals spoke rather clearly of approval.

“And I’d do it again,” Jack said, shooting the prone figure a murderous look. “Fucking Cerberus.”

The door opened just as Garrus was starting to cross the room to shake Moira awake again. Grunt filled the doorway, scowling in a manner he usually reserved for talking about imprints of ripping off turian fringes or snapping salarian necks. “We’ve got a situation.” 

“You weren’t supposed to leave your post,” Garrus said. Alenko sighed again.

“Left the Prothean in charge. Glowing and muttering about primitives. No one seemed ready to piss him off.” Grunt shrugged. “Yet, anyway. There’s a woman out there. A lawyer, she said. Would’ve handled it on my own, but she’s got a whole squad of mercs with her.” Grunt’s voice took on as plaintive a quality as it was possible for a krogan to achieve. “And Shepard said no bloodshed.” He jerked his chin at Moira. “Not that you seem to be following the rules.”

“She’s not bleeding,” Jack said. “Much.”

Garrus shook his head, holding up a hand in Shepard’s signal for silence. “I need more time.”

“I’ll buy you what I can,” said Alenko, smoothing his ruffled hair back with both hands. His brow furrowed. “I may be a Spectre, but there’s no Council. Someone’s bound to put the pieces together, Garrus, and I’m not willing to start a galactic incident over this.”

 _Too late,_ Garrus thought. Out loud he only said, “We may not have a choice,” and pretended to ignore both Alenko’s dismay and his father’s understanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who follows me on tumblr knows already I did not anticipate the break between updates being so long. Unfortunately I ran into several weeks of really awful real life stress, involving a number of illnesses--both my own, and of people I love--and fic-writing fell to the wayside. I'm really, really hoping not to leave you so long between chapters again. Thanks for sticking with me, folks. I really appreciate it.


	53. The Hanged Man

_She is thirty-three years old. She is thirty-one; she is three._

_Or perhaps she is twenty-nine, because she finds herself in the familiar dimness of the SR-1’s cargo bay. She inhales deeply, somehow expecting the scent of roses, but the room only smells of mechanical lubricant and gun oil, all mingled with a trace of stale sweat. Just for a moment, she lets herself believe the years she remembers are only a dream, a nightmare filled with rogue Spectres and rogue AIs and rogue sentient starships bent on the destruction of organic life. She lets herself believe she will turn around and see Captain Anderson leaning against the wall, a question about how she likes the place already forming on his smiling lips._

_But Anderson isn’t the ghost who haunts her here. She knows that. She knows it even before she takes one, two, three steps forward and sees Ashley leaning against her station, arms crossed over her chest, hair pulled back in its regulation chignon, a pistol at her hip and a small armory clipped to her back. She’s no longer wearing the Sunday-best dress or the patent Mary Janes or the lopsided knee-socks. Instead, she’s in her old Phoenix armor, the pink and white blood-tinged in the hold’s reddish light. Her helmet sits next to her on the weapons bench, faceplate cracked. Shepard looks closely and then wishes she hadn’t; the cracks are seamed with dark that can only be blood._

_Startled, she looks again and sees the wound, an impossibly small hole right in the middle of Ashley’s forehead. Blood leaks from it slowly, running in rivulets down her gunnery chief’s grim face. Ash doesn’t appear to notice. Her dark eyes watch Shepard carefully, warily, as if uncertain what kind of reception she will meet. That uncertainty, that wariness, stops Shepard in her tracks, and a deep uneasiness wells in her gut._

_“What happened?” Shepard asks. When she tries to remember, she sees trees, hears whispers, and puts a hand to her side, expecting to see it come away as bloodstained as Ash’s face. Her palm is clean, though, when she raises it, and the fabric beneath it dry. Looking down at herself, she frowns. Instead of armor or a uniform, she’s wearing a gold-embroidered blue dress. She doesn’t recognize it, and knows she should._

_“It’s just a bump,” Ashley says. Before Shepard can argue, Ashley unfolds her arms and gestures vaguely toward her. “I told you. It’s your nose.”_

_Sure enough, Shepard touches her fingertips to the soft flesh of her lip and they come away stained dark. She tastes the familiar metallic tang then, and wonders how she could’ve missed it before. She clears her throat, but the flavor remains, sick and bitter. Dropping her hand, she hides it in her skirt, as if hiding will make its bloody burden disappear. This, too, is something she should remember. She knows it. She has seen it before. But when she searches, she only feels the curious sensation of drowning, and that doesn’t make sense at all. Ashley watches with a sniper’s intensity._

_Shepard turns in a slow circle, facing the lockers she knows must be as empty as the rest of the cargo hold, as empty as the weapons bench. Ashley’s gaze burns into the bare nape of her neck. “Where is everyone?”_

_“Everyone?”_

_Shepard stops, suddenly aware she does not mean Wrex or Garrus or the Alliance requisitions officer, and turns back to Ashley. She clears her throat again. The taste of blood only grows stronger. Her dry lips crack as she parts them to speak. “The little girl. The teenager. The—the one in the white dress.”_

_Ashley nods, running the flat of her hand back over her hair even though there are no flyaway bits to smooth. A trickle of blood trails down the side of her face, hypnotic, almost black in the dim light. “Only you here, Skipper. You know that.”_

_“Only me.” Shepard pauses. “And you.”_

_Ashley’s hand falls back to her side, her eyes huge and heartbreaking beneath the wound that marks her forehead. She waves in the general direction of the Mako. “What do you say?”_

_Shepard follows the gesture and, impossibly, the poker table from the retrofitted SR-2 (not a nightmare, then, those years; not a dream) sits on the raised platform square in the middle of the hold, set for two, chips and cards already in place. “Didn’t know you played, Chief.”_

_For the first time, Ashley smiles. The grin cracks a little of the drying blood caked on her cheeks, but it also starts a fresh trail flowing. Shepard’s head hurts in sympathy, a faint ache between her brows. “Oh, I play.”_

_“That a challenge?”_

_“A promise,” Ashley insists, already heading for the table. “I know how you are about winning.” A shadow passes over her face, swift as a sigh. “Or maybe it’s the losing you hate. Even when it’s not your fault. Even when there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”_

_They both know Ashley is not speaking of cards. They both know the repercussions of a choice, the weight of that loss. The blood in her throat swallows her words, and she in turn swallows the blood._

_Ashley offers Shepard the deck of cards first, and when she demurs, Ash begins to shuffle them with an expert’s precision. Shepard’s better at Skyllian Five, but when Ashley suggests good old fashioned Texas hold ‘em, she agrees to it readily enough. They start off with small bets, trading wins and chips and good-natured ribbing back and forth. Ash is good. Solid. So Shepard doesn’t cheat even when she knows she could. It would only mean a few more chips in her pile and a few less in Ashley’s, and in a friendly game like this winning hardly matters, no matter how much she hates losing._

_“My dad taught me to play,” Shepard says, throwing a few more chips into the center, willing to bet high with a pair of queens in her pocket. “Back when I was more interested in the pretty cards than what they stood for. ‘Play the hand you’re dealt, sweetheart’ he always said, when I wanted to give up. Not big on folding, my papa. Cost him, I suppose. But also taught me to be fearless.”_

In real life, folding’s just not an option. Not really. So you take that two of clubs and ten of diamonds and you run with it, baby girl, and you hope the river’s kind.

_Ashley inclines her head, smiling over her cards, meeting Shepard’s bet and raising it further still. “You telling me you’ve got a good hand there, Skipper? Or an awful one?” Shepard cocks an eyebrow, but feigns nonchalance. Handy skill, nonchalance. “My dad taught me, too. But my mom was better. Don’t think my dad ever even realized it. She was all about the psychology. Wasn’t afraid to lose a hand or two if it kept her opponents in the dark about her real skill.”_

_“Sounds like someone else I know.”_

_“My sisters are all cutthroat. We used jellybeans instead of chips. I can’t play poker without the strongest craving for sugar.” Ash laughs, and wins the hand with an impossible pair of aces in the hole, made a set by the river. She whistles when Shepard turns over the ladies in her own hand. Even the turn’s Queen of Spades can’t help her. “Bad luck, Skipper,” she says, collecting her winnings and smirking a little. Shepard tilts her head in a show of respect; Ash had forced her to swallow that loss hook, line, and sinker. Ashley’s still smiling a little to herself as she shuffles and deals. Shepard’s pile of chips is smaller now, but she has the Queen and King of Hearts to work with, so she attempts to draw Ashley out, to get back in the game._

It’s not over until it’s over, sweetheart, _her father’s voice says, close enough to be real. She’s afraid if she looks to her left she’ll see him._

_She’s afraid if she looks to her left she won’t._

_A drop of blood splashes from Ashley’s chin onto one of her pocket cards._

_Shepard says, “We didn’t talk like this enough.”_

_The smile fades, dies. It’s not as violent as an explosion watched from a viewport, but it hurts Shepard all the same. “We didn’t get the chance, Skipper,” Ashley says. “Didn’t get a chance for a lot of things. No use crying over spilled milk. Raise.”_

_“I never really understood that one,” Shepard admits. “But my mom used it all the time.”_

_“All moms do, I think. Some kind of mom code.”_

_Shepard toys with the stack of chips directly in front of her, lifting three or four at at a time and then dropping them back into their neat pile. The flop hasn’t given her anything to work with, but she doesn’t want to fold yet. It feels too much like failure. “Didn’t get a chance for that, either,” Shepard says quietly. “Sorry.”_

_Lifts the chips. Lets them drop. Clink clink clink. It almost sounds like voices, like crying, like whispers in trees. Shepard stops. Lifts a marker. Really looks at it. And then gasps, dropping it to the table where it bounces and rolls away from her._

_“These aren’t chips,” Shepard says._

_“You play the hand you’re dealt.” It is still Ashley’s voice, but strange and strained, as if heard muffled through water or carried too far on the wind._

_“But they’re not chips.” She pushes her chair back from the table, hard enough to make her carefully stacked piles clatter to the green felt. Faces gaze up. A dozen familiar faces. Even more unfamiliar ones. Their eyes watch her when she moves. So many. Too many. She’s sick not to have realized it earlier; she’s been carelessly throwing pieces on the pile like they were no more than play money. “I can’t play with these. They don’t belong to me.”_

_“But you’ve been playing with them all along, Shepard. Remember what your dad said.” It’s the same tone Shepard last heard over crackling comms, Virmire’s sun hot on her cheeks, serious and desperate and a little angry, a little sorry._ Now go back and get the lieutenant and get the hell out of here. _Life and death. Choices. “Play or forfeit. What’s it going to be?”_

_Shepard covers her mouth with her left hand. Blood runs down the back of her throat, down the curve of Ashley’s cheek._

What do you need me to do?

_She knows. Of course she knows. She drops her hand and rises, leaning on the edge of the table, staring down at the unhelpful cards already visible. All diamonds, sharp as knives. “How much am I worth?”_

_“Not enough.”_

_Shepard shakes her head, disbelieving. “How many?”_

_“Skipper, you—”_

_Shepard lunges across the table, smacking the tops of her thighs hard into the lip, and grabs the edge of Ashley’s breastplate, hauling her close. She’s near enough to smell the blood now, and the unmistakable scent of burning flesh, and under it all the roses, those damned roses. “How many can I save, Williams?”_

_Ashley doesn’t attempt to pull away, doesn’t close her eyes, doesn’t flinch. She’d never flinched; Shepard had always admired it._ Break _, says a voice she doesn’t want to recognize._ Break, dislocate, snap. End it. _“It’s too late, Commander.”_

_“No,” Shepard snarls, giving Ashley a single shake._

_Ash bows her head, surrender and sorrow all at once. “They stacked the deck a long time ago, Shepard. It was never a fair match. You can’t win.”_

_The chips on the table are definitely whispering now, those same old ghosts and a thousand more, a thousand thousand, Garrus’ ruthless calculus in action. It is Virmire on the table, and Aratoht. It’s the Second Fleet. It’s Mordin and Kal’Reegar and Hilary Moreau. Her hand tightens, but not to hurt, not to shake. To hold. To keep safe what she knows, she knows is already lost._

_“Everyone loses, Shepard. Everyone loses sometimes.”_

_“No, Ash.” Finger by finger, Shepard releases her hold on Ashley’s armor. Finger by finger, she lets her go. “I see what you’re trying to do. I do. But I’m sorry. I’m all-in, and you’re not supposed to be here.”_

_Ashley’s eyes close, lashes dark against her cheeks. Tears spill, making tracks in the dried blood. “You’ll have to carry this on your own,” she says, touching her forehead._

_Shepard cups Ashley’s cheek in her palm and shakes her head. “It’s like you said, isn’t it? I’ve always been the only one here.”_

_As Shepard’s hand drops away, Ashley is already beginning to fade. “They’ll kill you.”_

_“They can try.” Shepard touches her lip again, but this time when her fingers come away stained with blood, she doesn’t hide them. She drags them across her brow, her nose, her cheek. A promise. “But if they’re not going to play fair, neither will I. Because that’s the other thing my papa taught me, Ash. Play the hand you’re dealt, sure. But when the stakes are high, it doesn’t hurt to hide an ace up your sleeve.”_

_Shepard cracks her knuckles, pop pop pop like gunshots. Let the bastards come._

#

Solana thought she was imagining things—or that her overtired, overburdened mind was playing tricks on her—when she heard the faint moan. Glancing up from her stack of datapads and their horror of information, however, she saw Miranda still fast asleep. Heart thudding, she looked toward Shepard's bed and found open eyes watching her. Shepard reached up to touch her own upper lip, moving with agonizing slowness, and her brow furrowed deeply when she peered at her fingers. This appeared a hopeful sign to Solana; something remembered. Shepard had arrived with dried blood caked beneath her nose, but of course the doctor hadn’t left it. Solana turned, glancing out the medbay window. Dr. Chakwas was in the mess, pouring herself yet another cup of coffee because she didn’t want to resort to more potent stims. Not yet, anyway. 

Before Solana could knock on the glass or call out or ask the pilot to page Chakwas over the comms, Shepard blinked at her, lips already turning up in a faint smile that did more to assuage her fears than anything else possibly could have, and said, “We really have to stop meeting like this.” Wincing, she pressed the heel of her hand to the center of her forehead and settled her head back against the pillow. “Ugh. She wasn’t kidding about the headache.”

"What--how much do you remember?"

The smile twisted, turned dangerous. "Enough. Now where’s your brother? He and I have work to do."


	54. A Gilded Shell

The dim light in Jack’s subdeck cubbyhole cast stark reddish shadows across Moira Callahan’s downturned face. Garrus couldn’t help the swell of petty pleasure at finally seeing her ruffled. The perfectly styled hair hung limp around her face now, and since Jack had managed to plunk her precisely in the puddle left by Alenko’s earlier show, her immaculate dress was stained and the scent of liquor clung to her, finally smothering the stink of her flowery perfume. The thought of that perfume made his gut twist, and pleasure—even the spiteful variety—disappeared as he recalled Shepard’s empty killer’s eyes and her unconscious body sliding to the floor. Too much remained uncertain. Like who she’d be when she woke. If she woke. He couldn’t dwell on that now. One thing at a time. This, then that. He took a deep breath, held it, released it through his nose. First things first.

Moira’s continuing state of unconsciousness wasn’t ideal; Alenko wouldn’t be able to stall forever, and Garrus wasn’t quite ready to release her, lawyer or no lawyer. Running a hand along his fringe, Garrus offered up a silent curse at Jack’s satisfying but ultimately counterproductive fit of temper. He contemplated whether he ought to go for stims—time was something he felt certain they no longer had in excess, even without the added annoyance of dogged legal counsel—when the woman gasped awake and raised her head, making them unnecessary. 

Dark smudges of makeup streaked the skin beneath Moira’s eyes and the blush on her cheeks was too bright against their unnatural paleness. A cut, deep enough to bleed but already clotting, slashed her brow, echoing the scar Shepard had lost when Cerberus remade her. Garrus crossed his arms over his chest. Tried not to think about Moira Callahan’s supposed involvement in that, too. Failed, mostly. This, then that. Cerberus was, at least for now, the least of their problems. Far down the list, in any case. Moira’s tongue darted out to moisten dry, cracked lips. Garrus could have offered her water and did not.

To her credit, Moira didn’t play stupid. She didn’t scream, and didn’t make any futile attempt to rise or run. Perhaps she couldn’t; Jack’s attack had stopped just short of deadly force, as far as Garrus could tell. Moira winced as she turned her head, but her expression immediately closed as she took in the unfamiliar space around her. He kept his own mask firmly in place, giving her nothing. If she was startled by the change of locale, little of it showed on her face.

“Finally called off the dogs, did you?” Moira asked slowly, each word enunciated with care, as if it took a great deal of effort to speak at all. Probably did. A better person might’ve taken her to the medbay. Garrus, however, was not feeling particularly generous _._ Or particularly _good_ , for that matter. And he was damned sure he didn’t want this woman anywhere _near_ Shepard. 

Moira lifted a hand, probing at the side of her head. Her nose wrinkled, but whether it was from pain or her current state of untidiness, he couldn’t tell and he didn’t care. “Your pet Spectre talked a good talk, I must say, but this is rather closer to what I was anticipating from the outset.”

Garrus, leaning against the wall opposite because he’d propped Moira in the hold’s only chair, said nothing.

Her lips parted, halfway between a smile and baring her teeth. “Isn’t this your usual modus operandi? Beat answers out of me and then hide the body down here where no one’ll think to look for it? Or better, string me up as an example for others? You do have quite the reputation, Archangel.” If she expected him to react to the old pseudonym, he was pleased to disappoint her. Even without the leaks and news stories from dogged, determined reporters desperate for a scoop that had started popping up the more attention Shepard and the _Normandy_ got during wartime, the moment Moira had insinuated she had _anything_ to do with Cerberus, with Brooks, Garrus had assumed she knew everything Brooks had known, and Brooks had been the one to put together Archangel’s dossier. He tilted his head, sparing half a moment to wonder if she understood how contemptuous a gesture it was. Maybe not quite as severe a slight as the batarian version, but the closest human equivalent would’ve been spitting his derision at her feet.

Whether she understood the subtleties of turian body language or not, something about his silence, his posture, got under her skin, because she sat up straighter and clenched her hands against the edge of the desk in front of her until her knuckles whitened. “It is rather a shame your secret identity is no longer quite so secret, is it not? An enterprising person could unearth any number of ugly, embarrassing details with just that single word to go on.” Still he held his tongue. Still he watched. She swallowed and the faint crease between her brows deepened as he remained staunchly unmoved. Relentless, she continued, “Were that knowledge entirely public, I daresay it could create no end of trouble for you. And for her.”

His mandibles twitched a warning at the mention of Shepard, and the steadiness of his gaze backed that threat up with promised action, but otherwise he remained perfectly poised, perfectly still, and perfectly silent. He didn’t have a sniper rifle trained on her, but facing Moira Callahan now was entirely akin to peering through a scope and waiting for the moment to strike. This, then that. She just wasn’t quite lined up in his crosshairs yet, but she was doing a good job of walking herself into range.

Moira’s mouth froze in its rictus and she dismissively swept her fingers aside, as if brushing unsightly wrinkles from the air. “You’d have killed me already if you meant to do so at all.”

Garrus smiled, most certainly baring teeth, and voice low, said, “You sure?”

She blinked several times, betraying a sudden rush of fear or adrenaline. Almost lazily, knowing _damned_ well how predatory he looked, Garrus unfolded, pushing away from the wall and drawing himself to his full height. Even before joining Shepard’s crew he’d had a tendency to slouch a little around humans, to round his shoulders and make himself less imposing. Moira Callahan rated none of this thoughtfulness. He took a step toward the desk, loomed to the best of his ability, and was gratified when her aloof veneer cracked and she pushed herself back only to find the chair braced against an immovable bulkhead. 

“Was Shepard ever in the presence of the artifact?”

Her breath hitched and her brows dipped in momentary confusion before she could school them. Also gratifying. But not actually an answer to his question. “I haven’t the slightest idea what—”

He raised a hand and her mouth shut hard enough the click of her teeth meeting echoed in the sudden silence. “Are you a death by cough, or gunshot wounds to all extremities? I can guarantee you’re not the mercy of a headshot when you least expect it.” He stared down at her, his own gaze unblinking. “Do I dangle you over the brink of death time after time, only to bring you back and force you to keep on living? Do I drop you in the lap of your enemy with a mandate to kill for them or watch innocents dying? Do I find a way to raise questions about you, about your identity, about your very humanity? Do I find a way to spin those questions so even those nearest and dearest to you can’t help doubting? Tell me, Moira Callahan, what does justice look like, after what you’ve done?” 

He lifted his browplates, mimicking the way humans so often asked questions with their expressive brows. “If you know I’m Archangel, and I know I’m Archangel, there’s really nothing stopping me from treating you the way he’d do, is there?” His subharmonics thrummed with the kind of dangerous warning even a human ear couldn’t fail to detect. If the past was any indication, it was a tone that could make a hardened merc shit himself. A tone Garrus had, in truth, learned from his father. But he wasn’t playing good cop now. He wasn’t playing at all. He watched understanding play out behind Moira’s eyes clear as a vid, and yet her reaction troubled him, setting his plates itching. Even if she had nerves of steel, something about the blind defiance wasn’t quite right. It was almost, _almost_ as though she was actively goading him. “If you’re going to blackmail someone, you’d better be sure they give a damn about whatever it is you’re using as a lever. I’m not ashamed of the work I did on Omega. I’m not embarrassed. And the only person who matters already knows every one of those deep, dark secrets you’re so proud of uncovering. Frankly, Moira, I’d be more concerned about what I might find to use against you.” He flared his mandibles, all teeth and menace, and repeated, “Was Shepard ever in the presence of the artifact?”

Again with the lifted chin, again with the defiance. He stomped on the prickle of rage he couldn’t afford to give in to. This, then that. This. This. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“I hated suspects like you when I was in C-Sec,” Garrus said conversationally, though his posture never gave up even an iota of its threat. “Not for any of the reasons you think. Certainly not because you’ve got powerful friends or lofty connections or enough money to pay off anyone who might tell the truth about you.” He narrowed his eyes, leaning forward, casually invading her personal space and leaving her precisely nowhere to hide. “It’s because you’re just smart enough to think—to really believe—you’re smarter than I am.”

This time it was definitely distaste in the wrinkle of her nose and the mulish turn of her mouth.

“I don’t care why you did it,” Garrus said, before she could give voice to whatever protest he saw forming. Her eyes widened and she looked stung, as though this had, indeed, been the track she intended to take. “I don’t give a damn about all the reasons you’ve told yourself are valid, even admirable. I’m sure it’s a thrilling fiction, but Shepard’s earned my—”

Here she did jerk forward, jabbing a finger toward him that had no hope of finding a target. Pain brought feathery, fine lines to her too-smooth skin, hinting at her genuine age. “Don’t you see?” she hissed. The harsh sibilance of the final word sent spittle flying. “That _loyalty_ she inspires. That _devotion_.” She spoke the words as if they held poison. “It’s why Cerberus wanted her. It’s why the Alliance refuses to let her go. It’s why they—It’s why she’s ultimately _wasted_ as a soldier.” Moira flung herself backward, glaring, as though Garrus were solely to blame for the entirety of Shepard’s decisions. “A soldier fixes individual problems, one at a time. A politician—a politician changes _everything_. Have you any idea what I could have done with a fraction—just a _fraction_ —of that charisma? Have you any idea what _she_ could have done?” She laughed, sharp and bitter, and even holding himself aloof, Garrus felt the cut of it. “And she always had it. Sixteen and sad and shy, and all she ever had to do was turn those honest, earnest eyes on someone and they practically fell over their feet to do whatever she wanted.” She lifted a hand, pinching the bridge of her nose in another of those gestures so eerily reminiscent of Shepard’s. “The… creature Maya Brooks brought me never had it. That spark. She looked right and sounded right, but those eyes were wrong. They were hard and they were empty and no one would ever have died for her.”

Moira released a sigh of a breath and shook her head, sinking down against the back of the chair and folding her arms around herself. “Kill me or don’t. Our conversation is at an end.”

Poised to argue, to threaten, Garrus stopped at the last moment and frowned. It wasn’t defeat in her shoulders. It wasn’t even defiance. It was fear. And not, he thought, of him. His low chuckle made her flinch, and the prickling of his plates began to make a little more sense. “That’s not the way this works. You’re through calling the shots. If you were ever the one actually doing it at all.”

Her answering glare burned, and he brushed it off. 

“You see, Moira, I’m starting to think you _want_ me to kill you.”

“Why,” she began, only to have her voice crack and break on the word. She cleared her throat, the fingers of one hand plucking uselessly at the fabric of her skirt. “Why on Earth would I want that?”

His huff of an exhale held no mirth. “You may have been instrumental in funding it and seeing it carried out, and maybe you even convinced yourself it was in your best interests, but that mess of murders you wanted Shepard to carry out wasn’t about you.” It was like watching ice crack beneath too heavy a weight. Her shoulders tried to straighten and failed, leaving her half-slumped. Drowning. “You’re the pawn you always wanted Shepard to be, aren’t you? Everyone knows how easy it is to sacrifice a pawn. They won’t even hesitate, now that you’ve failed. But you have no idea what they’ll do to you. So you’re provoking the beast you know.” 

She didn’t argue. Didn’t disagree. Didn’t look him in the eye. And Garrus felt the chill of certainty run the length of his spine.

“I may not be willing to kill you, but I am pretty damned close to giving you an object lesson in just how easy it would be to make you wish you were dead.” Without warning, he slammed his palm flat against the desk. She jumped, jerking her chin up and meeting his gaze with a little answering fierceness of her own. “That orb you found or bought or were given. The artifact. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. Was Shepard near it at any time?”

Moira bit down on her bottom lip and finally, finally, shook her head. “My husband bought it. Thought it was art. Displayed it rather publicly. Something beautiful to take his mind off the trouble—off the war. He would caress it as he passed, almost tenderly. Certainly with greater care than he’d bothered showing me in years. He began talking to it.” A trickle of blood, coaxed from her lips by the biting teeth, ran down her chin and dripped onto her gown. She didn’t appear to notice. “Then it began talking to me. A great deal of that time is… faded. Cold. Dark. They told me what they wanted. I made it happen. I am—I have some facility with making things happen. Years of entertaining, you know.” Her lips twisted. “I can find roses in the middle of winter if the centerpiece requires them. I can find Miranda Lawson in the chaos of a battlefield. But no. She was never near the thrice-cursed thing. Never in our home at all. They didn’t want her to be.” Her bloody mouth sneered at him. “They will have their tribute. You must know that as well as I. Your interference won’t stop them.”

“Maybe mine won’t,” Garrus agreed. “But hers will. It’s why they planned the whole murderous pantomime. It wasn’t enough to kill her quietly—that they could have had you do easily enough. No. They needed to destroy her, to _discredit_ her. To douse that spark you’re so damned envious of.” The tickle of laughter he felt at the back of his throat was a little hysterical and definitely inappropriate as he saw confirmation in her eyes. He swallowed it. “They held her once and they let her go, and I think they’re not sure if it was because they wanted to, or because she did.”

“Hey, Garrus?” Joker’s voice crackled, sounding somehow even more disembodied and distant than usual. 

Without looking away from Moira Callahan, Garrus replied, “Can it wait for a minute? Someone’s got to be able to stall them a bit longer.”

“Wouldn’t interrupt if it weren’t important, and it’s not the lawyer. Kaidan’s still reading her some kind of riot act outside. Lot of really intense hand gestures. Didn’t know he had it in him. No. They want you in the medbay.” Joker paused, and Garrus could hear the relief in his voice when he added, “The _commander_ wants you in the medbay, Garrus. Shepard does.”

He pushed aside the flutter of hope, replying, “Tell Alenko to keep her if he can, but if the lawyer insists, I’ve got what I wanted.”

“Aye, aye, boss.” 

Moira gazed up at him with pleading eyes, strangely honest after the endless lies and half-truths and prevarications. “Please,” she said. “You could do it. It would be so easy. You have every reason to hate me.” She shuddered, and this honesty was even more disturbing. “I—it’s so cold. It’s so dark. Don’t make me go back.”

The unwitting echo of Shepard’s desperate words—those words she’d sobbed because of what this woman had done—nearly pushed him over that edge. He stared down at her, breathing deeply, slowly, thinking about how little effort it would take to snap her fragile human neck, how satisfying it would be. Taking a step backward, he shook his head. “You’re Shepard’s to deal with. Maybe I’m the one standing between you and a bullet. Maybe I’m the one stepping aside so that bullet finds the back of your skull. But hers is the finger that pulls the trigger or doesn’t, and I’m not taking that away from her. Not after everything you’ve already stolen.”

“You can’t understand. You can’t understand what it’s like to have them whispering and whispering and to find yourself helpless against their wishes. My mind isn’t my own. Please.” She reached for him, but her hand fell short, helpless in the empty space between them.

His smile was slow, frightening, and this time he didn’t bother hiding the satisfaction it held. “You know, Moira? That sounds suspiciously like just the justice I was looking for.”


	55. The Agony In Stony Places

Knowing the tidal wave of concern—most of it justified, since waking up with fractured memories (and sometimes bones to match) was becoming something of a recurring problem—was coming, Shepard braced herself as Chakwas rushed through the doors at a jog, eyes wide, coffee in hand but half-forgotten and sloshing over the lip of her mug. Shepard inhaled longingly as the rich scent of the beverage filled the air, teasing her with promises of caffeine, but Chakwas deposited the mug out of arm’s reach, fingers already flying over the interface of her omni-tool. One of the machines Shepard was still hooked into, and which she’d graciously (she felt) declined to immediately detach herself from, gave an indignant beep, an echo of the questions she held carefully beneath her tongue while the doctor ran through a series of frantic diagnostics. The pace told Shepard a great deal, the furrowed brow said even more, and the complete silence as Chakwas worked said most of all. None of it good.

Finally, like she was afraid the answer might be something she didn’t want to hear, Chakwas peered directly, unnervingly, into her eyes and asked hesitantly, “Shepard?”

“Karin?” Shepard replied, mimicking her doctor’s tone, softening the mockery with a faint smile. She’d meant the attempt at humor to reassure, but it failed miserably. Chakwas didn’t flinch, but she looked, for a moment, as though she was thinking about it. For the third or fourth time since waking, Shepard tried to parse the strange bits and pieces of memory hovering on the periphery of her thoughts like the last remainders of a night of bad dreams, searching for something to explain the strained tension that went beyond her once again having woken in the _Normandy_ ’s medbay without recollection of having been brought in. Her gaze flicked past the doctor to linger on the prone figure she hadn’t at first glance realized was Miranda. The woman lay curled on her side, hunched as though genuine rest were impossible, and Shepard’s smile dimmed, punctuated by a crease of genuine worry and no small amount of confusion. She’d thought she was imagining things until Solana had insisted Miranda was real and not some bit of errant hallucination.

Shepard’s smile vanished entirely as Zaeed stepped through the medbay door, very obviously armed, his gaze sweeping the room with paranoid precision. Shepard lifted a brow, but the grizzled merc’s expression gave her nothing, and she began to fear the flickers of horror— _break, dislocate, snap_ —she’d put down to mere nightmare had a much deeper root in reality than she’d given them credit for. She folded her hands in her lap to keep them from clenching into impotent fists, stilling her own expression into a mask of bland calm to hide the sudden adrenaline kick. Zaeed remained near the doors, leaning against the wall, deceptively relaxed if one ignored the proximity of his very capable finger to the trigger of his very capable weapon.

Solana, Shepard noted, didn’t miss Zaeed’s arrival, either. Nor, if the shift in her expression was any indication, did she misread its implications. The sudden disapproval—and irritation—was almost identical to her brother’s, right down to the particular twitch of mandible and mulish tilt of head. Shepard couldn’t bring herself to laugh. She and Zaeed hadn’t always seen eye to eye. They had, in fact, butted heads with alarming frequency, and his had been the loyalty she’d been least certain of before they’d headed through the Omega-4. Afterward, though? Afterward, just like everyone else who’d made that run with her and survived against all odds, she’d have trusted him with her life, with the lives of those she held most dear.

In this case, she knew he was watching over the latter. Because through no fault of her own, hers was the questionable loyalty, the suspect actions. Instead of explaining this to an indignant Solana, though, she returned her attention to Chakwas, lifted querying brows, and said, “Really? Nothing? That’s how you’re playing it? But I’ve been so patient. A good ten minutes I’ve been awake, and haven’t pitched a single fit or threatened death to anyone who wouldn’t answer my questions.”

The doctor turned away slightly, her full attention on her omni-tool as if the information she pretended to absorb was riveting beyond compare. Shepard wasn’t taken in. Not for an instant. And the earlier adrenaline turned up a notch, accompanied by its vicious little friend anxiety. 

One of the reasons she and Karin Chakwas had always gotten along when she and so many other medical professionals had not was a distinct lack of dishonesty in their dealings. Chakwas never sugarcoated her diagnoses, and never pandered to what she believed the patient _wanted_ to hear. She never offered hope when it was false. She’d never lied to Shepard, never tried to force an agenda Shepard didn’t know about or agree with, never tried to play mind games with her. Shepard’s mouth twitched, not quite giving in to the desire to sneer. Her evals were full of notations about medical attempts at mind games and manipulation; hell, her canny eye and—what one evaluation had termed it— _fine-tuned bullshit meter_ were what had made her a prime recruitment prospect for spec ops infiltration in the first place.

 _No bullshitting the bullshitter_ , she thought, staring hard at the back of Chakwas’ neck. The other woman shivered, but didn’t turn. _Unless you reach inside and flip all the switches, of course. Unless you mess with her on levels no doctor was ever willing to try._ This time the shudder was her own, quickly tamped down, quickly smothered. She closed her eyes for a second too long, took a breath a moment too deep, and continued, “She’s not exactly hidden over there.” 

Still the doctor said nothing. “You’ve got to have a better poker face than that, Karin. I know you’re no slouch at the table. What’s Miranda doing here? And in that state? Hell, for that matter what am _I_ doing here, and in _this_ state?” A flicker of fear threatened to light the tinder sitting dry and ready in the pit of her belly, but Shepard ruthlessly blew out the flame and forced herself back to stillness, coolness. Serenity.

Solana’s mandibles flicked, the turian woman’s irritation at Zaeed momentarily replaced by surprise. Shepard bit down on the side of her tongue. _Heard that, did you?_ She’d been aiming for amusement, but even without subharmonics, a turian who spent any time around humans learned quickly and well to pay attention to the nuance of what was being said between words; too much of their own communication depended on it. Whatever Solana had thought she’d heard in Shepard’s voice, none of it showed in the clear amber gaze. Solana didn’t insult her by pretending at distraction or work, but she remained as silent as Chakwas. Shepard was no slouch at turian expressions, either; she saw Solana’s confusion plainly, and beneath it, a little fear of her own.

 _But fear of what? Me?_ Shepard shook her head minutely. Unlikely, given that Solana had viewed Zaeed’s arrival with irritation and not relief. _Something worse. Something I don’t know._ She looked to Miranda again, and this time Solana’s gaze followed, darkened, lingered.

“Tough crowd,” Shepard murmured, and this time the humor masked not fear, but a tiny frisson of rage. “Do I need to order someone to give me a full report?”

They were spared the necessity of answering by the swish of the medbay door. Zaeed shifted, but his sharp eyes never left her. Shepard noticed, filed away the merc’s concern, and then ignored him as well as she could ignore a friend with a weapon trained on her.

This time, Garrus didn’t hesitate in the doorway. He didn’t waver, didn’t pause, and though his expression was as hard and dire as she’d ever seen it, Shepard couldn’t stop the smile that pulled at one corner of her mouth. Even though he still wore civilian finery to match her own, Garrus moved like a soldier on a mission. No. Like a commander, like a leader. _Leadership potential overshadowed, my ass_. She’d met admirals with less poise. He carried his determination like a weapon, but unlike Zaeed’s, Garrus’ wasn’t pointed at her. She almost pitied the idiot who dared stand between him and his objectives. Almost. A little of the fear ebbed when he didn’t look at her like she was a proximity mine a second from blowing the entire room to smithereens.

Quite the opposite, really. As if he and Shepard were the only people in the room, he crossed the medbay, his long stride effortlessly eating the short distance between them. Chakwas began to protest, but Garrus shot her a look—just that, a look—and the doctor took a step back. Before Shepard could rise, Garrus’ arms slipped around her, one tight around her upper back, the hand of the other lifting to cradle the back of her head. His own head dipped, the scarred side of his face pressing against her hair.

“Shepard,” he said, just that, just her name. And she believed him. No matter what else was going on, her most private fear hadn’t been realized. Tears stung her eyes, swifter than she could blink back. For once, she didn’t bother. She only lifted her own arms, sliding them around him, stealing a moment’s comfort in the feel of his familiar back beneath her palms, his familiar heartbeat beneath her cheek.

“Moira Callahan’s a piece of work,” he said, soft but not a secret. “I’m sorry.”

“Moira?” Shepard asked, but confusion lasted only a moment as the memory slammed into place with force enough to make her rock backward. That familiar sneer, the cool eyes always primed to see faults, the cloud of cloying perfume. _You’re not supposed to be here._ Garrus’ arms tightened ever so slightly, the briefest of embraces, and then he released her, stepping back but leaving one hand on her shoulder, its weight reassuringly grounding. Still, Shepard’s head spun and she blinked three times before she could manage with feigned disinterest, “Is she dead?”

“No,” he replied, and though his voice sounded as bland as hers on the surface, Shepard heard the war beneath, the echo of the man who’d once nearly murdered Harkin with his bare hands, who’d have sacrificed bystanders to take out a organ-harvester’s ship. “No, she’s not.”

She tilted her head back and arched a brow, reaching up to curl her fingers loosely around his wrist, completing a circuit where they supported each other.

“Tell me,” she said. _Something true._

From him, at least, she had no hesitation. His pale gaze found hers, didn’t look away, warmed a degree or two. He said, “What do you remember?”

Her mouth twisted unpleasantly, but she swallowed the words _I remember I’m sick of that question_ , and instead answered, “It was a nice party. Kasumi really outdid herself. Pity about the perfume.”

“That much?” Garrus asked with a startled head tilt. “Good. Nothing after?”

Shepard shook her head, dragging her bottom lip between her teeth. “I wouldn’t kill you,” she added, the words themselves accompanied by a rush of impressions and images and the ghost of that compulsion— _break, dislocate, snap_ —even now she couldn’t place and couldn’t entirely banish. It didn’t seem like anything she’d have thought herself. She pressed her fingertips to one temple, and gave her head a little shake. The words felt distant, unremarkable, disconnected. “I don’t think I—I didn’t kill anyone else?” Garrus’ expression darkened, which told her how close it must have come, but he shook his head. A tiny knot in her gut gave way. She didn’t allow herself to wallow in the rush of relief. “Miranda was there.” _Ashley was there._ “I thought I’d dreamed her. Imagine my surprise to find her here when I woke up. Not,” she said, with a pointed look at Chakwas, “that anyone was particularly forthcoming about the circumstances. I trust Liara finally found her?”

“Yes,” Garrus replied. “But it’s… complicated.”

“When isn’t it?”

He didn’t laugh, didn’t chuckle, didn’t so much as indicate he’d heard, and the pang of warning she’d woken with began to bleat twice as insistently. “Garrus,” she said grimly, “how about you explain why you’re all looking at me like I’ve got three days to live.”

He closed his eyes briefly, but didn’t hesitate here any more than he had at the doorway. Before he could say more than her name, low and thrumming with chilling grief, an insistently cleared throat wrested her attention away from him. With no small amount of effort, and the halting lurch Shepard instantly recognized as resulting from several broken ribs, Miranda levered herself upright. Her eyes took a moment too long to focus, and even when they managed to find her, they remained damp and blurred with both exhaustion and barely-controlled pain. Shepard’s own newly-healed limbs twinged with sympathy.

“There’s a saying about shooting the messenger,” Miranda said, her voice rougher than Shepard had ever heard it. “None of them deserve to be caught in the crossfire, Shepard. I’m the one you want to talk to. The responsibility was—and is—entirely mine.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that, Lawson.”

“You’ll like the actual content less.” Miranda inhaled, attempting to straighten her shoulders. She couldn’t quite do it. Chakwas shook her head, making a note but not yet interfering. “After Lazarus Station, I told you I’d wanted to implant you with a control chip.”

“And were overruled,” Shepard agreed, not quite raising the final inflection into a question, as the little knot tied itself again, over and over, a grim double constrictor she feared she’d never be able to wriggle free of. Garrus’ hand twitched on her shoulder. The knot twisted tighter.

“I didn’t implant you then,” Miranda continued, slowly. Not hesitant, Shepard thought, but careful. Like a soldier caught holding a live grenade in a square full of civilians. Somehow she felt certain she was about to get blown up anyway, no matter how delicately Miranda lobbed the grenade her way. It was going to be her job to throw herself on the device. One more sacrifice. In a clipped tone that said more about Miranda’s state of mind—she was always sharpest when she was worried—she said, “When I was… recruited to oversee your care several months ago, I did.”

Shepard heard the words, but distantly, as though she was not quite in her body to make proper use of her ears. Miranda was still speaking, her cracked lips still moving, and Shepard couldn’t make out a single sound.

_Break, dislocate, snap._

For all the blood on her hands, very few of those deaths felt like murder. Watching Miranda’s mouth moving, Shepard remembered the batarian prisoner she’d killed in cold blood on Elysium, that dark mark no one in the Alliance wanted—or chose—to acknowledge, when the accolades were handed out later. She hadn’t thought about him in years, but now his sneering face, neck bared in blatant insult, swam up before her eyes, somehow more real than the scene playing itself out in the _Normandy_ ’s medbay. _I believe I will have fun breaking you, the way I have broken so many others of your kind,_ he’d taunted. _I like to break the ones who fight back_.And she’d shot him. She’d spent the rest of her career trying to atone for a sin her superiors refused to admit even existed. On the good days, she almost believed she’d done enough. But now, now, she realized that blood had not been washed clean, because if she’d had a gun she couldn’t have guaranteed she wouldn’t add Miranda’s blood to that of the long-dead batarian. Her memory of him smirked, all four eyes fixed on her, all four eyes judging her and finding her lacking. 

“Stop.” Miranda’s mouth closed, as though Shepard had meant the admonishment for her. 

Every eye in the room turned her way; the weight of them dragged her beneath a wave of horror she was trying and failing to keep herself above. She tried to speak and found she couldn’t. She swallowed, then moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. Tried again. “Take it out. Now.” 

“Shepard.” 

“ _Now_ , Miranda.”

“I can’t.”

“You won’t.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Miranda insisted. “You have no idea how jury-rigged the entire fix was. It’s a house of cards, Shepard. There’s no telling what will happen if I pull out the supports, but I guarantee it won’t be pretty.”

“Jury-rigged,” Shepard echoed slowly, tasting each syllable as if deliberation might somehow change the word into something palatable. The roll in her stomach proved the notion wrong. Garrus’ hand on her shoulder tightened again, briefly, and she spared it a sideways glance, staring at the long fingers, knowing they should have been familiar, comforting, and instead feeling nothing. Not relief. Not even anger. _I like to break the ones who fight back._ She imagined that batarian laughing now, wherever he was.

“Shepard,” he asked, pitching his voice low even though any privacy must be imaginary. A sharp, bitter little laugh rose before she could swallow it. Garrus’ mandibles fluttered, the nervous gesture spilling forth before he could successfully still it. She almost laughed again. She almost cried. “You need a minute?”

“Jury-rigged,” she repeated, lips parted in a mirthless, pained smile. “I don’t need a minute.” She brought the heel of her hand sharply to the side of her skull, but the pain didn’t clear her head. It just made her headache worse. “I need this _fucking thing_ out of my _head._ ” When she moved to strike herself again, Garrus caught her hand, held it. Not hard. She could’ve broken free of his grip effortlessly. She didn’t. “Why, Miranda? You could have slit my throat. Told them I was irreparably broken. I know I was already half-dead when I hit that beam in London. It would have been kinder. Why _this_ , why this of all things?”

Behind the bruises, Miranda looked stricken. “Because I—it never _occurred_ —”

“Obviously,” Shepard snarled, half-rising to the anxious bleat of the various machines she was still attached to. “You crawled through every goddamned _second_ of my life after Alchera and it never once _occurred_ to you then, either. You what? You thought you were doing me a fucking _favor_? Slapping shackles on me and then having the nerve to act surprised when I say I’d really rather be dead than a prisoner?”

“That’s not how it—”

“Do you have any idea how much damage I could do in the wrong hands? If you know how to use the chip, so must others, and I can’t risk—” 

“Being their weapon? You already are! You’d rather their fingers were on your trigger? Moira Callahan and her ilk? Worse?”

Shepard flinched.

“Enough,” Garrus snapped.

But Miranda only staggered upright, eyes bright, jaw clenched, weaving on her feet but no less determined for all the unsteadiness. Solana, nearest to her, reached out with a placating hand, but Miranda jerked away, heedless of the pain she had to be causing herself. “You’re right,” Miranda said, each word a bullet fired at point-blank range. Like Shepard had done to that batarian. “I used you so they wouldn’t. I could have left you to die just like I could have left you dead after Alchera. And I didn’t. Because we needed you. Need you. You want me to regret what I’ve done, but I don’t. I won’t.” Her expression softened, just for a moment. “You deserve better. I know it as well as you do. And you’re not going to get it. Not yet. For what it’s worth, I am sorry. Truly.”

“And if I disagree? If I say I’ve done enough?” Shepard’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll flip the switch and _make_ me?”

“I know you well enough to doubt it would come to that.”

“Not a no, though, is it?” Shepard shook her head, but halfway through the gesture she froze, running Miranda’s words over again. “The Reapers are dead. Destroyed.” Her brow furrowed. “What’s _worse_ than Moira Callahan?”

“Our aquatic acquaintances from Despoina seem to be under the impression that the destruction of their synthetic progeny gives them the right to step back into their previous role as galactic overlords. Complete with enslavement for all those upstart ‘lesser species.’” Garrus explained. “You, however, still make them uneasy. Enough to have wanted you openly discredited.” His register shifted, his subharmonics angry even while his dominant tone remained steady. “Lawson’s _stopgap_ \--" and there was no missing  _that_ emphasis "--prevented that.”

“Oh,” Shepard said, the syllable startled from her half-voiced. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Garrus agreed, the steeliness of his gaze telling her exactly who—what—was in his sights now. “Definitely.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, guys. I am SO sorry about the delay. For those of you who don't follow me on tumblr, and so may have been in the dark about the reason for my extreme tardiness in updating, I moved from one side of the world to the other at the end of May and the lead-up to, and aftermath of, the move just completely threw me for a loop. I'm REALLY hoping things settle back into a new normal soon, and thank you SO MUCH for your patience. I'll try not to disappear for quite so long again. <3


	56. The Black Clouds Gathered Far Distant

As the reality of the Leviathans sank in, Shepard didn’t waver, didn’t flinch, didn’t so much as blink, and yet Garrus, who’d learned her tells, saw her cheeks pale slightly beneath the blush afforded by her cosmetics, saw the spasm as her fingertips pressed briefly into her thigh, and knew the knife had slid deep, the bullet had struck something vital. She’d been haunted after the mission on Despoina, though she’d rarely spoken of it, even to him. Even when he’d asked. But he’d known. He’d seen her tells then, too. She’d missed a few of her usual conversational rounds with the crew. For weeks, the water she’d showered under had been scalding enough to leave her pale skin angrily red afterward. She’d eaten less, and claimed it was because she wasn’t hungry. Her sleeps had been shorter, and more troubled by bad dreams. Not that he could blame her. His own sleep had been just as restless. The trickle of blood seeping from her nose, the thunk of her armor as she fell from the Atlas, her gasp back to life: those had been the shape of his ghosts. She’d been cold then, lurching awake in the small hold of the Kodiak, gazing around with unseeing eyes whose stark horror couldn’t be hidden, even by someone as talented at hiding things as Shepard was. She looked colder now. And just as haunted. She touched her fingertips to her temple, and then brushed them over the skin beneath her nose, though no blood lingered there for her to mop up. Her gaze shifted, went distant, and the crease he recognized as _I’m thinking, don’t interrupt_ appeared between her brows.

The medbay door chimed.

Shepard started to laugh.

Even with only six fingers, Garrus could easily have counted the number of times he’d heard a sound so chilling and still have had digits to spare. The laugh wasn’t Reaper horns or his mother calling him by someone else’s name because she didn’t recognize him, but it was just as awful. Worse, somehow. A very unShepardlike hopelessness lurked in it; he knew exactly how her laugh would have grated if she’d had a turian’s subharmonics. It wasn’t a sound he was accustomed to hearing from her. She’d faced Reapers and thresher maws on foot without succumbing to that brand of darkness, but here, now, in the medbay of her own ship, she sounded like she was drowning. His own gut twisted in response, and his hands twitched with the desire to comfort even as he knew how little she’d appreciate the gesture with an audience of eyes all turned her way. 

“What’s it going to be this time?” she asked of no one in particular. “We’re running out of shoes to drop, here.”

When Zaeed and Chakwas exchanged a look, Garrus realized the door was locked. And this time, he suspected, it was to protect the people without more than the people within. The way Shepard folded her hands in her lap told him she’d come to the same conclusion, and her silence was nearly as chilling as her laugh had been.

“This is unnecessary,” Garrus said, not quite able to keep the growl from his own tone.

“Is it?” Zaeed asked, for once entirely without belligerence. If he’d been feeling any less irritated, Garrus might even have granted him the benefit of the doubt and allowed it to be apologetic. Zaeed’s gaze dropped to meet Shepard’s, the furrow of his brow pulling unpleasantly at the scar tissue around his eye. “Until the doc gives the okay, the door stays shut. It’s the goddamned order you’d give if our situations were reversed, and you know it.”

In her crispest, most accustomed-to-being-obeyed voice, Miranda spoke before Shepard—or Chakwas—could. “I sincerely doubt it’s one of her original targets on the other side of that door, and even if it were, the effects of the trigger have likely worn off. Or she wouldn’t be awake. And herself.”

“Trade one trigger for another,” Shepard replied, jerking her chin in Zaeed’s direction. “You can point the gun directly at me, if it makes you feel better. I won’t take it personally. But I’d like to see who’s here and what they want. All intel is good intel at this point. And _you_ know _that._ ”

Chakwas’ lips thinned momentarily before she crossed the room and opened the door herself. Grunt stood on the other side, arms crossed over his huge chest, clearly impatient about being made to wait. Garrus supposed they had to be glad he hadn’t simply broken his way in. Grunt peered over Chakwas’ head and shrugged in Shepard’s general direction, ignorant of or indifferent to the strained silence greeting his arrival.

“The woman won’t leave,” Grunt said bluntly. His eyes narrowed in some blend of delight and anticipation and maybe a little good old-fashioned krogan bloodlust. “Could make her, if you want.”

Shepard didn’t laugh at this, and though her expression remained fixed and inscrutable, the scroll of her stats on Garrus’ visor caught the shift in her pulse. She said, “And by ‘the woman’ you mean Moira Callahan?”

“Says she wants asylum. Says she’ll be safer here.” Garrus recognized Grunt’s smile as the same one he wore when thinking of particularly gruesome imprints in the _how to kill aliens_ mental file Okeer had left. “Heh. Shows what she knows, battlemaster.” 

Too quietly for anyone but Garrus to hear, Shepard muttered, “A hanar’s worth of shoes it is, then. If hanar wore shoes.” Louder, she said, “That’s the exact word she used? ‘Asylum’?”

“Shepard,” said Garrus, mandibles flaring in sudden dismay. “Even apart from your history with her, I have every reason to believe she’s been compromised by the Leviathans. You don’t owe her—”

“Trust me,” she interrupted, lips twisting in a wry grimace, “this is not about owing. I balanced that ledger years ago. But if she’s here, she’s not making trouble elsewhere.”

“Unless her purpose is to make trouble here,” protested Miranda, stumbling forward another step. Her haughtiness vanished, replaced, Garrus thought, with genuine fear the like he’d never seen on her face, except, perhaps, when she’d thought Oriana compromised beyond saving back on Illium. Solana, closest to her, actually reached out and grabbed an arm, though it made them both waver on their unsteady feet. “You mustn’t underestimate her.”

Shepard’s fingers closed into a fist again before flattening. “I can safely say that’s something I will never do.”

Miranda’s cheeks flushed beneath the bruises, but she didn’t try to take another step. “And yet she managed to maneuver you—us—into this position. She had ties with Cerberus—to the Lazarus Project _itself_ —even I never knew about, and I don’t think they were the only cards she was holding.” She winced as her lip split again, a bead of blood welling from the cut. Her tongue darted out to catch it, and she continued, “Perhaps the Leviathans used her. Perhaps she, for a time, was as unwilling a pawn as she made so many others, but her game is long, Shepard, and I doubt even a conversation with Garrus at his most menacing was enough to frighten the ambition out of her. She’ll find a way to use this to her advantage.”

“You think I’m not aware of that? You’re mistaken if you believe this is charity, Miranda. This is a friends close, enemies closer situation. If she’s one of the pawns I know belong to Leviathan, I don’t want her back on the board.” Shepard’s eyes were cold, all hint of her earlier distress vanished behind the armor of her competence. Her pulse still tripped along at a slightly elevated pace, but her posture betrayed none of it. She turned her attention back to Grunt. “Inform Mrs. Callahan I am willing to consider her request if she is willing to accept several inflexible and doubtless uncomfortable provisos. I will require her consent to these in writing, and she must understand my Spectre authority, and the authority Garrus holds as current commanding officer of the _Normandy_ , supersedes any other consideration, including Alliance law.” Shepard’s omni-tool interface blinked to life, and the orange shadows it cast across her face banished any trace of her paleness. She glanced up thoughtfully, and then spoke as she began typing. “Due to the sensitive nature of our current mission, she will have no access to the extranet and will be required to surrender her omni-tool. She will cooperate fully with all requests for information, regardless of subject or previous confidentiality agreements. Additionally, operational security requires her to be under observation at all times. If she chooses to remain aboard the _Normandy_ , she must understand she does so by forfeiting her right to counsel or outside contact, until Garrus or I decide to lift that ban. She will not be mistreated, but nor will she be a guest.” For a moment, Shepard’s smile was almost as bloodthirsty as Grunt’s. “Also, see that she’s hosed down and scrubbed to within an inch of her life. With the strongest disinfectant we have available. I’d like her to stink of nothing but bleach for the foreseeable future. Once bitten, twice shy, as they say.”

She glanced up at Garrus, and he caught the echo of the worry she hadn’t voiced. She said, “Is that acceptable? This is still your operation. Say the word and Grunt can toss her out into the mud.”

For a moment, he imagined it and enjoyed the mental picture, but Shepard had a point, as always. Like she’d had a point about Saleon, even like she’d had a point about Sidonis. If she could set aside her hatred for the woman, his own frustration and dislike could hardly compare. Even with her world tipped sideways and her faith shaken, Shepard still looked at the big picture and not merely the personal one. His mandibles flicked, and he bent his head in mute acquiescence. “See she’s kept away from Brooks. Turns out they’ve worked together in the past. I don’t want to see a repeat performance.” He sighed and added, “We’re going to want to be careful about personnel, too. I don’t want to think any of our people would listen to her, but…”

“She’s got resources that’re hard to argue with?” Shepard nodded. Her _I’m thinking_ crease returned full-force, and Garrus was almost grateful to Moira Callahan for giving Shepard a problem she could actually chew on and potentially fix. “You’re not wrong. I’d ask Samara, but she’s got her hands full. Alenko, maybe, if we can spare him.” She smiled faintly. “He’s always been charmingly incorruptible. I’d like to see Moira beat her head against that problem. Grunt? You okay with watching her until Alenko can take over?”

“Sure, Shepard,” Grunt replied, still with the terrifyingly krogan smile. “You humans talk too much. I’ve gotten good at tuning it out.”

“Well, don’t kill her unless it’s absolutely necessary. She might be useful.”

Grunt turned around, the door closing on his menacing little chuckle. Chakwas retreated to Miranda’s side, finally helping the battered woman into bed.

“Now,” Shepard said, once Miranda was settled, “before we were so rudely interrupted, we were talking about the anvil that just landed on our heads.”

“I thought it was shoes dropping,” Garrus replied mildly, and was rewarded with the tilt of one corner of her mouth.

The smile vanished, however, as she said, “You’ve already got people looking for any artifacts?”

He nodded. “And Sol’s working on an armor or omni-tool version of the shielding EDI used in Bryson’s lab.”

Shepard sent Solana an approving, if still somewhat distracted, nod. “Then we should go back to the party,” she said, plucking at one of the wires tethering her to the bed. “We should make an appearance, prove I’m—”

“No,” Chakwas said. “Absolutely not.”

“And let them think they’ve won?” Shepard asked, shaking her head. “We know Moira won’t be there.”

“Moira or no Moira, for this evening let them believe what they will,” Chakwas said. Not unkindly, but her firmness of purpose was unwavering. She turned away from Miranda, arms crossed over her chest, and for an instant she wasn’t merely the ship’s doctor—she was queen of the medbay, whose word was law, regardless of anyone’s version of chain of command or Spectre authority. Even Shepard paused, stilled, and after a long moment, inclined her head in unspoken surrender. “Soon you will prove how wrong they are. But not tonight, Commander, and likely not tomorrow. I must understand the parameters of what was done to you. Until then, you remain a threat. Zaeed’s correct: were it anyone else as compromised as you are, you’d be absolutely intractable about keeping them under watch.”

The knife slid deeper, twisted. Garrus saw it in Shepard’s eyes, though her expression betrayed nothing. Nor, however, did she argue. Her hands fell back to her lap, half-curled and still. The confidence he’d seen as she dealt with Moira Callahan dimmed, like a light turned low. Not quite switched off, but muted.

He said, “We’ll be in the cabin, then.”

Chakwas’ frown deepened.

“No, Garrus,” Shepard said softly. “She’s right. Hell, I’d be safer in the brig, if I didn’t already know half a dozen ways to break out. Which I do.”

“You’re not a threat to me,” he insisted. “Or you’d have taken me out on your way to Hackett and Wrex and the primarch without a second thought. Sleep on it, Shepard. In your own bed.”

“Because I’m in a real great place for optimizing firing algorithms right now.” She said it lightly enough, but her smile was another knife, this one also turned inward. “Sleep might not be a bad idea.”

“My ideas are never bad.”

Shepard snorted, almost a laugh, and held out an arm. Chakwas hesitated only a moment before beginning the process of once again freeing her from the prison of her machines. Garrus watched, hoping it would be the final time, and fearing it wouldn’t. Shepard was like the punching bag Vega kept down in the hold, forever swinging back into form, no matter how many hits she took. But even the sturdiest bag split sometimes; all the scars and bandages of tape were proof enough of that. Shepard’s wounds weren’t so visible; most people never saw them at all. He knew they were there. He just didn’t know what he could do to adequately patch them. 

“Another idea,” he said, and she tilted her head at him inquisitively. “Also a good one, it goes without saying. We’ve had a lot of new intel, and more’s bound to come in. I think a crew meeting is in order. Get everyone up to speed. We don’t want mistakes made in ignorance. Tomorrow, maybe. Once we’ve checked and rechecked the ship for compromising artifacts.”

Shepard nodded once, then, a second later, more decisively. “I’d like to bring the admiral into this. Primarch Victus and Wrex, too.” She raised her eyebrows at Miranda. “Or are we looking at a repeat of tonight? Because I can honestly say the last time I was alone in a room with the three of them, the only murderous thoughts I had were the result of how poorly they were managing to get along.”

Miranda shook her head. “The trigger’s in the scent. As long as everyone in the room is clean, my programming—the measures I took should hold.”

“Why scent?” Garrus asked. “Couldn’t anyone with the same perfume have pulled the trigger early? And unknowingly?”

“It’s not the vector I would have chosen,” Miranda agreed. 

“No, Miranda would have relied on an undetectable, unremovable piece of tech to do her dirty work,” Shepard said, so mildly a less savvy listener mightn’t even have heard the anger just beneath it. “Tidier. Less chance of messy mishaps.”

Miranda ignored this. “Time was limited and scent has powerful ties to memory. At least for humans. In a way, the choice of perfume was fortuitous. Moira’s own body chemistry was part of it. Someone else wearing the same blend wouldn’t have had the same effect. I did make sure of that.”

“Why not throw a wrench in the gears, then?” asked Zaeed. “If you were calling the goddamned shots?”

“You think I didn’t?” Miranda asked, with a little heat of her own. “I didn’t have carte blanche. I was a skilled prisoner held against her will for the purpose of completing a task, not a project leader. The scent was intended to be a redundancy. Had Moira’s brainwashing succeeded as _she_ intended, Shepard would have killed her targets the moment she saw them, no hesitation, no perfume necessary. That was the biggest wrench I, and my undetectable tech, managed.” Miranda moved as if to toss her hair and froze midway, when she realized her short tufts were unequal to the task. “I could not have done more. I was watched. They didn’t trust me. Even when I proved I could do what was asked, they never trusted me. And every step of the… alteration was monitored and tested. Had I failed—had _Shepard_ failed to do as they wanted—”

“Miranda,” Chakwas said. “You’re in no condition for this now.”

She looked as though she meant to protest, but Shepard’s voice, as used to being obeyed as Miranda’s snapped out, sharp as a whip, as another knife. “We’ll debrief tomorrow. Yours is definitely intel I want to pass along.”

“Shepard,” Miranda said. “If there’d been another way…”

“You’d have taken it. I understand.”

And perhaps she did, but she didn’t bother trying to sound happy about it. Garrus offered an arm under the pretense of helping her from the bed, and Shepard took it, flashing him a glance no less grateful for being brief.

They spoke to no one on their way through the crew deck, and the elevator was empty when it opened. Garrus sent a vague thank you to whatever Spirits were looking out for them, hoping they’d won a reprieve from further interruption. On the upper deck, however, the door chimed open and revealed Liara waiting on the other side. Her eyes darted immediately from him down to Shepard, and a smile brightened her face. 

“Shepard!” Liara took a step forward, and with his fingertips resting lightly against her lower back, Garrus felt the subtle tension in Shepard’s spine as she prepared herself. “Thank the goddess. You had us all so worried.”

The tension intensified as Liara stepped closer, arms already opening for an embrace. Shepard let herself be hugged, returning the gesture one-armed. He heard the weary lie Shepard so often used for everyone except him as she said, “I’m okay, Liara.”

Garrus said, “Anything yet?”

Liara stepped back, facing him. He schooled his expression to stillness as Shepard lifted grateful eyebrows behind the asari’s back and gave him a one-shouldered shrug. “No. Tali and her team are combing the maintenance shafts, but the main areas of the ship are clear.” Shepard’s eyebrows snapped down instantly when Liara turned again, saying, “Forgive me, Shepard. It took so much longer than I anticipated to track Miranda down. I suspect your Moira Callahan employs quite an accomplished information broker—or information obfuscator—of her own.”

“She does enjoy employing people,” Shepard remarked drily.

Garrus had been privy to enough of Liara’s lectures to see one coming from several clicks away, and before she could get more than a few dozen words into the debrief, he settled a hand on her shoulder, startling her into silence. “We’re up here on the doctor’s orders,” he said, offering an undetected little lie of his own.

“We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” Shepard added, before Liara could say anything. “I know you did the best you could with the resources you had available, Liara.”

Liara bit down on her bottom lip, a gesture, Garrus suspected, she’d picked up from Shepard. “If only we had had access to—”

“Tomorrow,” Shepard repeated, stepping aside, heading for the cabin door, only to be caught by Liara’s fingers curling around her wrist.

“I am sorry, Shepard. About—”

“Don’t be,” Shepard said, and these words, too, were knives. “It’s not your fault. None of it’s your fault.” Shepard shifted, drawing her arm away until Liara was reluctantly forced to release her. Thus freed, Shepard immediately stepped into the cabin. Garrus lingered a moment in the hall, while Liara gazed after Shepard with wide, sad eyes.

“Is she, Garrus?” Liara asked. “Is she okay?”

“Would you be?”

Liara flinched.

“Don’t ask her to be something she’s not, Liara.” He shook his head. “She’s good at—what’s that saying? Rolling with the punches. But this one caught her in the gut when she wasn’t prepared. Don’t push.” 

He didn’t wait for her response, following in Shepard’s footsteps, closing—and locking—the door behind him. Shepard leaned against the wall next to the door, head tilted back and eyes closed. The strain showed in the faint creases around her eyes, the shadows beneath, the jumping muscle in her jaw. “You know,” she said, almost conversationally, “I wouldn’t mind tearing a page from her book and throwing myself across the bed to sob for a while.”

“I wouldn’t judge you for it if you did,” Garrus replied softly. “It’s—it’s all a lot to take in. Liara—”

Shepard waved a dismissive hand and scowled. “Liara means well. I know that. She always means well.”

“But you don’t have it in you to make her feel better about things while you’re busy dealing with the shit you’ve just landed in?”

“Ahh, Garrus, so poetic.”

She didn’t immediately argue with him, though, so he knew he wasn’t off the mark. Instead, she pushed herself away from the wall, stalking toward the fish tank, slamming the side of her fist against the button even though the VI had kept the fish in perfect health in her absence. The hamster was back in the little prefab unit Garrus caught himself thinking of as _theirs_ , and she grimaced as she turned toward the shelf only to realize it was empty. Tucking her arms close, she folded them over her chest as if uncertain what to do with herself now that the small task of caring for her pets had been stolen from her.

“Shepard,” Garrus said. “Talk to me.”

She reached up to drag her hands through her hair, but the gesture was thwarted by the braids and curls still piled atop her head. Glaring at her fingers as if they’d betrayed her, bright spots of color burned high in her cheeks. “Leviathan,” she snapped. “Of course. We should have left it alone.”

He leaned against the wall in the place she’d so recently vacated, leaving her room to pace. “You didn’t wake them. Isn’t it better to know they’re out there? Isn’t it better to know what we’re facing? We had _no_ information about them before you spoke to the one on Despoina. None. If nothing else, your experience with them at least gave us intel. Think about it. Fear of the Reapers kept them in check, but with them gone, how easily might the Leviathans have made slaves of us all? Those poor bastards on Mahavid were enthralled for a decade.”

“It might still happen.” She raised a hand and covered her eyes. “I don’t know how to stop them, Garrus.”

“You didn’t know how to stop the Reapers, either, and that—”

“Don’t say it turned out okay,” Shepard said, suddenly sharp. “The price was higher than I wanted to pay. I think it’s highly unlikely we’ll find a convenient weapon of mass destruction just waiting for us to build it this time.”

He inclined his head, feeling the sting of the old wound, the weight of EDI’s body in his arms as he laid her to rest in the AI core, seeing Tali’s purple-clad figure moving amongst the rows and rows of too-still, too-silent geth. “We still won.”

“By turian standards?” she asked with a bitter edge. “If even one person is left standing at the end, it was a success? Tell that to the geth.”

“I don’t envy you the decision, or the weight making it heaped on your shoulders. Hell, I’ll help you carry it if you’ll let me, because it’s the decision I’d have made in your place. But this isn’t about the geth.” He lowered his voice, even with no one to overhear them, and added, “It’s just us here, Shepard. It’s just me.”

Like a compulsion, her hand drifted over temple and upper lip again, before tracing her collarbones through the sheer silk of her dress and trailing around to the back of her neck. She ducked her head, but not before Garrus saw that familiar haunted look.

“We’ll figure out how to remove it,” he said. “You have my word.”

“And if we can’t?” Her voice broke on the final word, and she coughed. “If you take my gun and you take my ship and you take my mind, what’s left?” Her hand curled around her throat. “No wonder the clone was insane.”

“You’re not her,” he insisted. “You are not her.”

But if Shepard was listening, she didn’t acknowledge it, turning on a heel and striding from one side of the cabin to the other, one hand still clutching her throat, the other opening and closing into an impotent fist at her side. 

“Shepard.” She ceased her anxious pacing, turning to face him so abruptly it took a moment for her skirts to catch up. They swirled to stillness around her ankles. For that moment, it was the only movement in the room. “This isn’t a problem you can solve in an evening.” Her lips parted, eyes bright with protest. He shook his head, taking a step toward her, extending a hand. Her gaze dropped to it as though she had no idea what it was for. “And it isn’t a problem you have to solve alone. She was alone. You’re not. You are _not_ alone.”

When her eyes lifted to his once again, they were full of the tears she so rarely let anyone see, and for a moment he was half-tempted to simply run her a shower and leave her alone to do the cathartic, solitary weeping she usually needed after taking a hard blow. She shook her head, though he hadn’t spoken, and took the step toward him necessary to grip his hand in hers. He tightened his fingers around hers and was gratified when she squeezed back just as hard.

“I’m tired, Garrus,” she admitted.

“I know.”

“And I’m scared.”

“I know. I am too.” He paused, taking a steadying breath. “And I’m worried.”

She blinked up at him, wounded. “About me?”

Shaking his head, he plucked at one of the pins half-slid from her hair. When he tugged it, one of her little braids sagged. He began unraveling it as he spoke. “Sure. And about Solana, and my dad, and the mess the Reapers made. About Palaven, and the people I left behind there. About the Leviathans, and every damned bastard who wants you dead. Hell, I’m worried Wrex is going to name one of his kids after me. Or you. Turns out there’s no shortage of things to worry about. That’s a selection. We’d be crazy not to worry, right? And we’re not crazy.”

She reached for her hair, and he gently batted her hands away, loosening the pins himself, freeing her hair curl by curl and braid by braid from its upswept prison. He glanced at his visor and noticed her stats finally returning to something approximating normal, heart rate slowing, vitals stabilizing. She even made a contented, almost-turian noise when he finished releasing her hair and dragged his blunted talons through the cloud of strands, paying extra attention to her scalp. He dropped his hands to her shoulders, massaging them just the way he’d learned she liked, until at least a fraction of the tension eased from them. She sighed, half-sorrow and half-relief.

“This wasn’t how I thought this evening would go,” she said. Garrus rescued her hands before she could undo all his hard work by twisting them anxiously in her skirts, folding her slender fingers between his large palms. “And this certainly isn’t how I thought it would end.”

“You’re awake, Shepard. You’re alive, and so is everyone else. It may not be perfect, but I’m still calling it a win.” He dipped his head, bringing his brow to hers in a moment of solidarity, relieved when she pressed back against him, her lips curling.

“I guess it’s not strictly _over_ yet, either,” she said.

“Plenty of time to turn things around.” He wrapped an arm tight around her shoulders, and murmured, “You owe me a dance, at the very least.”

“Metaphorical, I hope.”

“Definitely literal.” He chuckled, tickling the soft skin of her cheek with a mandible. “Maybe a bit of the metaphorical kind, too.”

“You’re pushing your luck, Vakarian,” she said, her grin at odds with her tone.

“I’m certainly trying,” he replied. 

But she laughed, so different from the chilling sound of the medbay earlier, and was the first to reach for the music controls. “Fine,” she said. “One dance.” She narrowed her eyes, glowering out at him from beneath severe brows. “And you make sure to twirl me at least once, because this skirt was made for twirling.”

“Aye, ma’am,” he said smartly, trying not to think of the calm before the inevitable storm.


	57. What the Thunder Said

Solana only realized she was dozing when Kaidan slipped into the empty seat next to her with a pleasant, “How’re you holding up?” and the sound of his voice jolted her upright. She’d been dreaming about endless streaming lines of code and malfunctioning omni-tools, which was, she hated to admit, an improvement over nightmares of Cipritine burning, or losing limbs one after another, or seeing everyone she loved turned into Reaper husks. Gripping the edge of the conference table, she glanced around. No one else appeared to have noticed her exhausted slip, or they weren’t drawing attention to it if they had. Then again, most of them looked as tired as she felt. Tali and Sam sat side by side, half leaning into each other, poring over a datapad. Dr. Chakwas and Miranda nursed steaming cups of coffee, and if the shadows beneath Miranda’s eyes were darker, Solana suspected it was only because they were actual bruises.

“Shouldn’t I be asking the same thing?” Solana rolled her neck until it cracked satisfyingly. “At least all my hard work has been kept local. As I understand it, since last we spoke you’ve been running all over the stage, playing a dozen different parts.”

Kaidan’s lips twitched, and he reached a hand to his own neck, giving it a solid rub. “Shame I was never much of an actor. Not like Shepard.” Solana’s mandibles flicked. Kaidan must’ve picked up a thing or three from sharing such close quarters with Garrus for so long; he immediately held up a quelling hand. “Oh, it’s not an insult. Not at all. If anything, I admire it. She always knows her audience, and never gets caught out because she didn’t realize she was in the spotlight all along.” He sighed. “I finally feel like I’m earning the Spectre status Udina pushed for, at least. Makes me realize how unready I was. She makes it all look so damned easy.”

“The best actors do,” Solana agreed, closing her eyes briefly to fend off memories of her own years presenting one face and living a different life entirely. Not many had known her well enough to see behind that mask; she wondered if Garrus was the audience Shepard could never fool, the way Naxus had always been hers. She swallowed past the sudden knot of emotion lodged in her throat. _Cipritine burning._ That part had never been just a bad dream. She blamed her weariness for the surge of memory now; it never ambushed her when she was well-rested.

Kaidan lifted a brow, but not the way humans did when they were asking their silent questions. This gesture seemed to acknowledge her struggle without asking her to divulge things she wasn’t ready to talk about. She pulled her mandibles tight to her cheeks as she tried to ignore memories of fire and Reaper klaxons; as she tried to forget they way she’d screamed and tried to run when her father insisted they had to go, Cipritine was lost, their only chance was fleeing the city; as she pretended she didn’t remember every word of every message she’d attempted to send to Naxus since, only to have them all bounce or go unanswered. Scrubbing her palms down her thighs, she imagined opening a closet in the back of her mind and shoving everything she couldn’t deal with into it. Not healthy, maybe, but necessary.

Settling back in his seat, Kaidan cast his gaze around the gathering crowd. She thought, perhaps, it was to give her a moment to collect herself, and she was absurdly grateful for it. Chairs purloined from other parts of the ship lined the walls, and still there weren’t enough. The low murmur of half a dozen conversations flowed around them. Most of the faces Solana knew from her weeks on the ship. Jack leaned against the wall, a small pocket of space around her, even given the room’s crowdedness; Joker also stared into the depths of a coffee mug, though he didn’t actually appear to be drinking from it; Liara spoke to Javik, and Javik ignored her. Others weren’t familiar: the human with all the muscles, talking to Steve Cortez; the small, hooded figure sitting on the opposite side of the table with her knees drawn up in the circle of her arms; the dark-skinned human sitting on Miranda’s other side and shooting her concerned looks whenever she wasn’t looking.

“Who’s on guard duty?” Solana asked, when she thought her voice was back under control. A faint waver in her subharmonics betrayed her, but Kaidan, lifting a shoulder, didn’t appear to notice.

“Samara’s still with Brooks, and Grunt’s watching Callahan, though I don’t know how necessary it is. She appears to be the one person who managed to get a full sleep last night. Was still out when I left.”

“In case I needed more reasons to hate her,” Solana said, hard-pressed to hold back her yawn.

He inclined his head, the gesture both agreeing with her estimation of Moira and indicating her leg. “I see you didn’t run into any setbacks medically-speaking, at least.”

She swung her calf back and forth obligingly. It ached, but no longer pained her. With a wry flutter of her mandibles she decided another few months of intense physical therapy might have her once again up and about without assistance. “I don’t have Shepard’s remarkable healing abilities, but I’m doing okay. Have to say I was a little surprised when your ‘see you in a week’ turned into,” she waved, encompassing the room, “all this.”

Kaidan sighed, lifting both shoulders this time in an apologetic shrug. “I couldn’t be completely honest at the time. Shepard’s orders. And your brother’s. Though I wasn’t exactly expecting all this, either. Textbook example of the snowball effect.”

“You talked to my dad? About… about everything?”

“I did. He’s been invaluable.” Kaidan chuckled, shaking his head. “And I thought mine was a challenge. Yours has an incredibly refined sense when it comes to sniffing out rats. It must have been hell trying to get away with _anything_ while you were growing up.”

“Hell’s one word,” Solana said. “Impossible’s another. Once in a while I could blame Garrus, though, and Dad would buy it. Garrus set some excellent precedents.”

As if summoned by their conversation, her father strode in. Primarch Victus, Urdnot Wrex, and Admiral Hackett followed on his heels. Solana tried to parse their expressions for clues; she knew Garrus and Shepard had intended to see them before the meeting, if only to be certain a repeat of the party’s near-disaster wouldn’t become bloody reality. She didn’t have the first idea how to read a krogan, but the primarch looked as shaken as she’d ever seen him, and the shadows beneath Admiral Hackett’s eyes were almost as dark as the ones beneath Miranda’s. Her father greeted her with a nod, but didn’t leave the primarch’s side. Kaidan half-rose, but Admiral Hackett merely waved him back into his seat.

“At least everyone’s alive?” Solana murmured without mirth. Kaidan, still looking at the trio of newcomers, nodded, though the crease between his dark brows deepened. 

The incessant murmur of conversation died the moment Shepard and Garrus entered. Neither smiled, but somehow this was reassuring instead of unsettling, and Solana found herself easing back in her wheelchair, her shoulders sinking, her mandibles no longer held quite so tight to her face. Shepard and Garrus wove through the crowd, offering brief words or handshakes on their way. Kaidan sighed, a note of relief so unmistakable in the soft sound that Solana hummed a query before she could stop herself.

“You haven’t seen them like this, have you?” If he’d been turian, she’d have thought she detected a note of longing in Kaidan’s voice, perhaps even of envy. Looking closely at Shepard and Garrus, Solana couldn’t have described what, exactly, was different, but it seemed a little like she was just now seeing an image she hadn’t realized was out of focus until the cleared version was right in front of her eyes. Whatever story Kaidan’s tone told, his expression was genuinely relieved as he continued, “Doesn’t matter if they’re on a battlefield or in a boardroom. They’re a force when they’re united. It’s been a long time. I was starting to think—well. I’m glad I was wrong.”

Solana nodded, only half paying attention, watching her brother and Shepard navigate the room. They didn’t touch, didn’t even look at each other, and yet she felt certain they were each perfectly aware not only of what the other was doing, but of everything else going on around them, too. Toward the end of their run of missions together she and Naxus had formed a similar sort of bond, reacting before the other managed to get a hand signal out, answering before a question had been asked, aware of—and able to neutralize—threats before they finished materializing. A pang of longing, of grief, twisted her insides, and she understood Kaidan’s tone all the better, though his was the longing of someone who’d never known a Naxus or a Shepard. His _you can even love her, if you want; she makes it easy_ took on an extra layer of meaning she hadn’t quite understood when he’d said it before.

When they finally made their way to the head of the table, Garrus stood at Shepard’s side, arms folded, gaze missing nothing; Shepard settled into an alert rest. Neither of them took the seats that had been left empty for them. Shepard and Garrus, Solana decided, had something she and Naxus had never _had_ to have: authority. They weren’t just the cogs; they were the wheel, and Spirits help anyone who stood in their way.

Shepard turned her head and raised her eyebrows. Garrus answered this silent query by opening one hand in a gesture obviously intended to give her the floor. She nodded once, and turned to face them, hands linked behind her back, expression serious but not grim. 

“So,” Shepard said, and though her tone was utterly conversational, the word carried effortlessly without her having to raise her voice. “Doubtless by now you’re all aware we’re up to our eyeballs in shit.”

Jack snorted, rolling her eyes. “Tell us something we don’t know.”

Instead of the dressing down for insubordination Solana would’ve expected on a turian ship, Shepard only huffed a breathy near-laugh. “When aren’t we, really? I know. I can imagine the rumors. Today’s about making sure we’re all on the same page.” Her gaze, clear and determined, slid around the table. Solana found herself drawing ever so slightly to attention when Shepard’s eyes found hers. “I’m not going to pull any punches here, people. We all assumed the Reapers were the worst thing the galaxy had to throw at us.” The corner of her mouth turned up in a wry smile. “You know what they say about assuming.”

Solana didn’t know what anyone said about assuming, but the titter of laughter that swept the table managed to sound amused. Kaidan leaned near, resting his weight on his elbow, and explained, “It’s a pun on the spelling. Makes an ass out of you and me.”

She nodded, but was prevented asking any further questions by Shepard continuing, “Obviously the biggest elephant in the room is the reappearance of the Leviathans.” Shepard grimaced, as though the word left a sour taste in her mouth. Perhaps it did. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got zero interest in spending my life in thrall to a pack of ancient undersea bullies too lazy to do their own heavy lifting.” If Solana hadn’t been in the medbay to witness it firsthand, she could never have imagined this woman rattled. Shepard lifted her chin, the picture of confidence, and even though Solana _had_ seen the slip, _had_ seen behind the mask, she felt her own determination to succeed stir in answer. “Unless someone has some miraculous Leviathan-defeating super-weapon tucked away somewhere, I think we’re on our own for this one.”

The big, muscled marine Solana hadn’t been introduced to shifted, unfolding his arms and lifting his shoulders in a shrug. “You know I’m always up for a fight, Commander, but I was there. I saw these bastards in action. I saw what they did to Ann Bryson, saw how quickly they were able to take her. Hell, Lola, I still got nightmares about Despoina. How do we fight something like that?”

“Carefully,” Shepard said evenly. “And with backup. The same way we fight everything, James.” Her smile was a companionable clap to the shoulder, a bolstering cheer in the face of overwhelming odds. “We’re not without resources, and if we’re going down, I intend to go down fighting.”

A surprisingly optimistic cheer answered her. After a moment, Shepard lifted a hand and silence fell once again. 

Solana watched the people around her as Shepard briskly brought them up to speed, outlining in bullet points the relevant information about the party, about Moira Callahan’s influence, and about the Leviathan threat. They were bullets, too, if some of the expressions were any indication.

“So, how do we know we’re not all puppets already?” James shifted from foot to foot. Some of the others looked equally uncomfortable, Solana thought, and no one reprimanded him for speaking out of turn. He held his hands wide. “Sorry, Commander. Someone’s got to ask.”

“Well, none of us are muttering about the cold and the darkness, or performing bizarre experiments, or trapped in an endless loop of _you’re not supposed to be here._ ” No one laughed. Shepard’s expression forbade it. She looked down the length of the table, and instead of one of her human gestures—smiles or eyebrows—her head tilted in a decidedly turian fashion. “Solana? You want to field this one?”

Momentarily unsettled by the sight of a turian gesture so effortlessly reproduced by an alien, Solana blinked. Garrus’ mandibles laughed at her, though nothing else about his posture so much as hinted at amusement, and this returned her voice.

A flutter of anticipation—nerves, excitement, terror—made her stomach flip as all eyes turned to her. Speaking of spotlights. Clearing her throat, Solana said, “I can’t take credit for most of the work. You’re all aware your omni-tools were checked and augmented with new programming as you boarded. The program we added is essentially a reworking of the shield tech EDI designed to contain the Leviathan artifacts. As long as it’s running, you should be safe from any outside tampering.” Solana gestured, something between a human shrug and the turian head-tilt that indicated acknowledgment of uncertainty. “What I’ve managed is a stopgap at best, thrown together with the information I had available. Now that we’ve bought ourselves a tiny reprieve, Tali, Sam and I will be working to improve it. I suppose it’s to be expected from an actual artificial intelligence, but EDI was incredibly clever when she came up with the algorithm. Spirits, I wish I could ask her about it. Something of this scope would’ve taken me weeks, maybe months, and if the logs are accurate, she developed it within hours.” Solana brought up her own omni-tool interface, turning her arm to show the display. “Although we have virtually no idea _how_ the Leviathans manage their… their telepathy, for lack of a better term, we do know EDI’s shield worked. As I understand it, she programmed it to cycle a rapid intervals through ever-changing—”

“The highlights’ll do, Sol,” Garrus said mildly. Solana glanced around the room, and noted the faintly glazed expressions on more than one human face.

“Ah. Right. Well. Your omni-tools and suitboard computers should keep you safe while we try to engineer a more permanent solution, and while we try to work backward to figure out the root of the problem.”

“The Leviathans manipulate others to do their bidding,” Shepard added, casting a last grateful nod in Solana’s direction. “If they can’t get in your head, they can’t use you. We saw it during the war. They turned Reapers and Reaper forces against each other; they didn’t involve themselves directly. I’d like to believe it’s because they can’t. They’ve been desperate to keep out of sight for a long, long time; that inactivity has, I hope, crippled them. If we take away access to the resources they’ve come to rely so heavily on—sentient lifeforms—they may find themselves helpless.” Shepard’s eyes narrowed. One hand reached up, brushing at her face almost as though she expected to find her nose bleeding. It wasn’t. “No matter how high their opinion of themselves, they’re not gods. Not by a long shot.”

Jack stepped away from the wall. With her hands clenched at her sides and her teeth half-bared, Solana felt certain the slightest spark could set her alight, and anyone with the misfortune of finding themselves in her way would regret it. “Just how sure are you these fuckers are shut out? You know how I feel about people fucking around in my head, Shepard.”

_I need this_ fucking thing _out of my_ head _,_ Shepard had snapped in the medbay, wild as a trapped animal. Solana knew that. She’d seen it. And yet nothing of that terror, that anger, that _despair_ showed as she faced Jack and said, “And you know exactly what lengths I’d go to to protect you from that kind of violation again, Jack. This is the best shot we have. For now.” She paused, lips momentarily compressing. “You want to take yourself as far from here, from this, as possible, I won’t stop you. Hell, I’ll understand.”

“Fuck it, Shepard,” Jack said. “Least when I’m tagging along with you I’m not kept in the fucking dark.” Frowning, she settled back against the wall again, her posture so carefully nonchalant even Solana could see through it. “Wouldn’t mind sending my kids somewhere out of the line of fire, though. Wasn’t the Alliance fucking _deploying_ those damned artifacts?”

 Hackett flinched. Shepard’s mask didn’t quite slip, but she did nod, and her expression wasn’t, in that moment, either confident or pleasant. 

“That was a highly classified operation,” Admiral Hackett said, so Shepard wouldn’t have to.

“Yeah, well, my kids and I were right there holding the fucking line for your guys. You’d better believe I was keeping my eye on things. Especially shit that looked shady.”

“That’s the problem with fighting a war everyone expected to lose,” Garrus said. His voice, though soft, carried as effortlessly as Shepard’s. Solana heard the regret in it. She heard the grief, too.

“You’re willing to get in bed with an enemy if it means the whole house doesn’t burn down around your ears,” Shepard added. She and Garrus exchanged the briefest of looks. The subtle flare of Garrus’ mandibles was a nod. More, Solana thought. It was an encouraging nudge.

Shepard unfolded her hands, bringing her arms to her sides, and for a moment, Solana was struck by the strangest certainty that Shepard was facing them all with all the bravery of an innocent facing a firing squad. “Which brings me to a more personal admission.” Miranda lifted her head at this; Dr. Chakwas looked troubled; Garrus remained carefully immobile, the coiled calm of a sniper waiting for his shot rather than the frozen stillness of shock. Solana realized she must have inhaled too sharply when Kaidan sent a slantwise glance her way. Shaking her head, she stared at the hands folded in her lap, and waited for Shepard to drop her bomb.

“I am no longer fit for command.” Solana couldn’t make out the voices that rose in protest; the outcry was instant and vehement. Shepard’s voice cut through the din. “I’ve suspected as much since… well. I’d say since I woke, but what I suppose I mean is since I came back to myself. Miranda has… confirmed my suspicion.”

“Like hell,” Jack spat, teeth half-bared. Her hands glowed ever-so-faintly blue. “She shows up out of fucking nowhere and we’re supposed to just, what? Swallow whatever she shoves down our throats? No fucking way, Shepard. No matter what—”

“I have a control chip in my head,” Shepard said, each word clipped. Jack jerked back as if the words had actually reached out and struck her with physical force.

“You _bitch_ ,” Jack snarled, dropping into a crouch. Miranda turned her head in Jack’s direction, but didn’t otherwise move. “You goddamned fucking Cerberus traito—”

“Miranda did what she thought she had to in order to save my life.” Solana didn’t miss the subtle ire still just under the surface, even though Shepard’s expression betrayed none of it. “Stand down, Jack. Or leave. Those are your options.”

For a moment, Solana genuinely thought Jack was going to go with the latter option. Or take a third, involving bloodshed. Tension kept everyone still. Kaidan’s hands closed into impotent fists; she wondered if he was deciding how best to mitigate the damage if the worst happened.

After an interminable wait of seconds that felt like years, Jack muttered another expletive and settled back in her place, expression bordering on mutinous. 

Crisis averted, Shepard continued with deceptive mildness, “Essentially, Garrus has been in command of the _Normandy_ since the final push back in London. Little should change.” The corner of her mouth turned up. “I’m not going anywhere. I just won’t be the one calling the shots. Not while I—not while there’s any question in my mind about my fitness.”

“Shepard,” Miranda said. “I assure you—”

“Your assurances aren’t enough, Miranda. I’ll stay on in an advisory role if I’m wanted, but Garrus has the ship.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Commander.” The words were so incongruous, the dissension so unexpected, it took Solana a moment to realize they’d come from Primarch Victus.

Shepard blinked, rattled enough to shift her weight from one foot to the other, and said, “Sir?”

“Vakarian was aboard the _Normandy_ as a Hierarchy liaison.” Victus was stone-faced, stone-voiced. “The Hierarchy once again requires his service.”

“In what capacity?” Garrus snapped, subharmonics thrumming with frustration. “The Hierarchy’s in as much a shambles as the rest of galactic politics, and don’t think the Leviathans will neglect to take advantage of it.”

Solana cringed at the obvious omission of proper honorific. If the primarch noticed, he didn’t choose to reprimand Garrus for it. He also didn’t rise to Garrus’ ire; his voice remained enviably calm, enviably certain. “We had a conversation before you left on your rescue mission. I’m certain you recall it.”

Garrus’ fingers clenched tighter. “You think I’m more valuable preparing for an eventuality that will never exist if the Leviathan threat isn’t neutralized?”

“Garrus?” Shepard asked, softly. “What is he talking about? What eventuality do you mean?”

Before Garrus could answer, Primarch Victus said, “This isn’t just about Palaven, isn’t just about me. Or you. You said it just now, Vakarian. The galaxy’s in shambles. You may like it no better than I liked being named Primarch, but you are the natural choice.”

“As your successor?” Shepard said, brow furrowed.

“No, Commander,” Primarch Victus said, a little waver of weariness breaking through the stone. “As the next turian Councilor. You rightly chastised us for taking on too much. A new Council must be formed before—”

“You’ve got to be _kidding!_ ”

It wasn’t until every eye turned her way that Solana realized the exclamation of disbelief, though clearly echoed on her brother’s slack-mandibled face, had been hers. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Her outburst had merely started the ball rolling. A sea of sound washed over her. Garrus said nothing. Neither did Shepard. They shared a look, though, and Solana recognized that one, too. 

Turians weren’t swimmers. They knew drowning when they saw it.


	58. In a Flash of Lightning

On the one hand, Garrus knew he had to say something. On the other, since neither laughter nor keening was the appropriate response, he couldn’t say anything quite yet. 

Solana half-choked, “You’ve got to be kidding,” and he wished he’d been the one to manage it, since it so perfectly encapsulated his own feelings on the subject. And yet, when he caught the shocked tilt of his sister’s head, the flare of her mandibles, he remembered her in his little grey room, sitting at his little grey desk, with the sound of rain pattering against the roof. He remembered her exasperated expression, and the exact tone of her voice as she said, “You’re a politician whether you want to be or not.”

He’d wanted her to be wrong then, even as he’d known she wasn’t.

Little as he’d liked the prospect, on some level he’d known one day he’d be called to serve the Hierarchy in a political capacity. He’d done his job too well, and even without Reapers to advise about, his knack for tactics and logistics in the face of overwhelming odds wasn’t going to go unnoticed. Not when he’d been so competent right under the primarch of Palaven’s nose.

He’d just thought he’d have more time before that call came.

And he sure as hell hadn’t thought it would be the Councilorship he’d be asked to step into. An aide’s role, maybe, or a minister of some kind. Someone Victus could rely on. Someone Victus could trust.

When Garrus’ gaze shifted sideways, past Solana, past Victus himself, the utter lack of surprise on his father’s face was nearly as much a shock as Victus’ words had been. He didn’t think he was imagining the slight incline of his dad’s head, the faint flick of his mandibles, and abruptly his gut-reaction intention to defer in favor of his father was pulled out from beneath his unsteady feet. As crazy as it sounded—and it sounded _damned insane_ —his father’s serenity meant he’d known this was coming.

More than that. Known _and_ approved.

The urge to laugh or to keen, or perhaps to do both at the same time, only grew.

Garrus glanced at Shepard, to find her already looking up at him, her expression caught somewhere disturbingly between surprise and thoughtfulness. The thoughtfulness alarmed him; like his father’s placid acceptance, it meant Shepard wasn’t dismissing the idea out of hand. Possibilities—plans, tactics, strategies—spun out behind her eyes, and only the crease between her eyebrows hinted that a little irritation might also be lurking beneath the smooth mask. He could practically _see_ her scrambling not to change Victus’ mind, but to work the new information into her original plans, and his own gut twisted.

Victus had seemed troubled earlier, certainly, but they all had. Garrus had put the uneasiness down to the sudden revelation that a hit had not only been ordered, but narrowly escaped. That the Leviathans were manipulating pieces on a board still in a state of post-war upheaval had merely been added horror, accepted with the grim resignation of people who’d looked into the face of their own deaths every day for a year—more—and had secretly thought the prospect of peace too good to be true.

A dozen different voices assaulted him, none clear enough to break through the rest. Garrus caught individual words, half-asked questions, and inflections his translator strained to make sense of. Like his father, Shepard said nothing. Garrus only realized his hand was halfway to his head when Shepard’s fingers grazed the back of it, stopping him. He looked at the fingers blankly, then raised his eyes, steeling himself to reply.

A piercing whistle cut through the cacophony, and Alenko rose to his feet in the ensuing silence. “Garrus?” he asked, tone carefully neutral, expression carefully blank. “You want to respond?”

Shepard smiled an approving smile, her momentary concern shifting into a querying lift of brow turned Garrus’ way.

_Right. Definitely. Words._

Before Garrus could do more than open his mouth, Wrex shifted sideways, an unmistakably menacing glower fixed on Victus, and said into the whistle-won silence, “This wasn’t what we discussed.”

Garrus felt a pang—just a pang, what with the mess the primarch had just landed on his shoulders—of sympathy. Wrex could do murderous without half-trying, and he was, at the moment, channeling pissed off with a vengeance. “What we discussed is no longer a viable option, Wrex. You know it as well as I do. And with what was a conflict of interest removed from the equation, I feel the Hierarchy’s choice here is clear. Forgive me, but it has nothing at all to do with krogan or human interests. It does not need to be cleared by multi-species committee.”

“Some of us evidently weren’t present for the backroom political discussions,” Shepard said with deceptive mildness. Garrus didn’t think anyone in the room failed to hear the bite just under the surface. “Care to share with the rest of the class?”

Raised inflection notwithstanding, it was not a request. And though the men she directed the words at were, in every way that mattered, her superiors, they all had the grace to look vastly uncomfortable.

“We discussed you taking a Councilor’s seat,” Wrex explained, with heavy emphasis on the words _we discussed_. “Can’t see how that would come as a surprise. No one ever accused you of being slow on the uptake, and the war made you the galaxy’s most trusted politician.” Garrus saw the protest form on her lips as they parted, but Wrex cut across it with a swift, decisive hand gesture. “Argue all you want, Shepard. No one else could’ve done what you did. Not with the turians and the krogan; not with the quarians and the geth. If you’d told me a year ago there’d be rachni helping krogan and salarians pull Reaper parts out of the streets, I’d’ve laughed in your face. And probably introduced you to my shotgun for being an idiot. But damn if you didn’t manage to swing that, too.”

Her laugh was a short, miserable bark; her wry smile a knife turned inward. But she didn’t object. “I can see how the earlier revelation that I’m a brainwashed, control-chipped sleeper agent with a temporarily thwarted mission to kill you all as publicly as possible might’ve thrown a wrench in that particular set of gears.” Shifting her weight, she crossed her arms over her chest and regarded Wrex with speculatively narrowed eyes. “I’d still have turned the honor down, of course. And rightfully so. Conflict of interest two or three times over. For one thing, I’m military, not civilian, and, at least for humanity, that counts for something.”

“That what you said when the last Council asked you to choose between Anderson and Udina?” Wrex asked shrewdly, leaning forward to brace himself against the edge of the table.

Shepard didn’t take his bait, and her own posture didn’t budge, though her smile did warm a little. “Anderson wasn’t happy about it. For many of the same reasons I wouldn’t be. I believe we both looked at it as a short-term measure, meant to act as a placeholder until someone other than Udina was prepared to take the reins.”

“Still, he came around. Saw the need. Can’t see how you’d handle it any different.”

Giving her head a shake, Shepard continued, “Even if I weren’t compromised six ways from Sunday, I’m still a Spectre. Spectres _exist_ to do the things the Council doesn’t want to admit to. Seems wrong to let one of them walk into all that power, no matter how decent you think they are, no matter how much you think you can trust them.” She sighed, but didn’t relent. “I know how the galaxy sees me, Wrex. And I know how many keys to how many kingdoms I’ve been entrusted with. But at the end of the day, I didn’t end up an infiltration specialist by accident. I’m a spy. Occasionally, I’m an assassin. I’ve spent the last decade getting my hands dirty so people higher up the chain of command wouldn’t have to. More of my dossier is classified than not. Hell, some of my dossier is fabricated.” Her gaze shifted to meet Hackett’s; he was the first to look away. “You want a new galactic government to succeed where the last one failed? I think transparency’s the first thing they’ve got to commit to. And that’s not me. I’m good at secrets. Finding them. Keeping them. Protecting them. Transparency’s not in my nature.”

Finally uncrossing her arms, she waved her hand in the vague direction of her head, the gesture seeming to indicate its current state of control-chipped, brainwashed uncertainty. “None of which changes those wrenches I mentioned earlier. I’m not a good option. Garrus is better. Better enough that he should’ve been your first choice all along. I can’t argue with you there, Primarch. Though I wish you’d chosen a different time to mention it. Maybe half an hour ago, say?”

“Perhaps you might’ve mentioned your intention to step away from active duty,” Victus replied, subvocals undeniably pointed. “Your plans forced my hand a little, Commander.”

“Wait,” Garrus said. “She might not want to argue, but I do.” Shepard’s lips twitched, a ghost of mirth, but she stepped ever so slightly to the side, giving him the floor. He took it without flinching, eyes fixed on the primarch, certainly not feeling whatever it was that made Shepard smile. “Sir, this has got to be some kind of mistake. There’s got to be someone more qualified—”

Whatever Garrus was expecting—a sharp order, a dressing down, even a frustrated sigh—it wasn’t what he got. As if a whole room of people weren’t hanging on their every word, Victus turned his palms up in a helpless gesture and said, with audible grief, audible sincerity, “Who, Vakarian? Who? Your father? Me? You think an abundance of turians have your experience on the galactic stage?”

“Sir—”

“Hear him out, son,” his father said, with the same confidence he’d be obeyed that had driven Garrus crazy as a kid. And a junior C-Sec officer. And even, occasionally, as the Hierarchy’s Reaper Advisor. This time, Garrus didn’t protest, didn’t bristle. He fell silent, and gestured for Victus to continue.

Victus’ nodded, mandibles flaring briefly in unspoken thanks. His eyes, however, never left Garrus’. “Every turian who escaped the Citadel speaks highly not only of the work you did in the refugee camps, but of _you_. You proved yourself there, acting decisively without oversight because you saw problems and you knew they needed fixing. Some people might’ve deferred, passed their concerns to someone else. Waited for orders. You didn’t. And you have to know it made an impression.” Victus spoke with such confidence, such conviction, that vocals and subvocals thrummed in complete agreement. Before Garrus could speak, before he could say _I did what anyone would’ve done in the same situation, Sir_ , Victus continued, “And every turian knows the debt we owe you for your warnings, for your preparation. We might’ve faced the same fate as the batarians without you, Vakarian. The Hierarchy is deeply in your debt.”

“No one would’ve have had the intel without Shepard, without the sacrifices she made.”

“Indeed,” Victus agreed, with another grateful nod, this directed at Shepard, whose lips twisted under the scrutiny. More than anyone, Garrus knew how little she appreciated being thanked for what happened at Aratoht. “And yet, forgive me, who else listened to that warning? Who else prepared as the turians prepared? Arcturus Station met the same fate as Khar’Shan, even though, as I understand it, Shepard returned to the Alliance at once with the same proof you laid at the Hierarchy’s feet.”

Garrus shifted uncomfortably, settling his weight on his left foot. “You think Primarch Fedorian would’ve lifted a talon to help if not for my dad?”

“Naxus would’ve,” Solana said, her voice startling Garrus into remembering a whole room of eyes watched, a whole room full of ears hung on every word. Those eyes shifted to Solana now, but she didn’t flinch away from the scrutiny. “Dad helped send it up the chain of command faster, but Naxus believed you, and the primarch would’ve listened to him, too, eventually. You made a good case, G. And you spoke with the kind of conviction that was hard to ignore. Even… even when the listener was predisposed to think the worst of where you’d been and what you’d been doing.”

“Sol…”

“She came around,” Solana said, lifting her shoulders in a shrug.

“We all did,” Victus added. “And aside from the work you did on Palaven and on Menae, consider your connections, your friendships.” Victus’ nod was almost a bow. “Shepard, of course, and Admiral Hackett speaks well of you even when you’re driving him mad.” Vcitus pointed to Tali. “A quarian admiral.” The gesture moved down the table to Liara, paused, and though Victus left the words unspoken, the meaning was clear. Finally, he nodded at Wrex. “And I guarantee Urdnot Wrex has fonder feelings for you than he does for me.”

“Not saying much,” Wrex said, but even Garrus could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

“My place is on the front lines, fighting,” Garrus said, though he could hear his own subharmonics wavering as every turian bone in his body reminded him about the importance of duty. “Not behind a desk, not arguing in circles with both hands tied behind my back as the galaxy faces yet another impossible threat.”

“You think this is a punishment?” Victus asked, a thrum of disbelief in his subharmonics, tempered with something like genuine dismay. “I’m not looking to take you out of the fight, Vakarian. Far from it. Make the _Normandy_ your _Destiny Ascension_ , if you figure out what direction to fly her in. But we can’t fight blind, and we can’t fight leaderless.” His sweeping motion took in Wrex, Hackett, himself. “We let ourselves be ambushed. We broke the cardinal rule.”

“Took your eyes off the hostiles,” Garrus said softly. “Lost count.”

“Left my six open,” Victus agreed. “And then practically painted a target on it. You—you and Shepard, and the crew of the _Normandy_ —you’re the best we have, and we know it. Making you Councilor gives you undeniable authority. Authority is important.”

Even without looking at her, Garrus knew Shepard approved. He could practically _feel_ the agreement rolling off her in waves. No one spoke out now; eerie silence hung over the conference room as he slowly looked from face to face. He expected to see disagreement, and found none. Tali’s head-tilt was as approving as Shepard’s silence; he didn’t think Liara realized she was actually nodding her head while gazing meditatively into the middle distance. Jack even smiled at him, a brief flash of teeth and a lift of eyebrows that said _better you than me, asshole._

“Fine,” Garrus said, not bothering to hide the faint tinge of doubt coloring his tone. “Fine. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this new system slip in and screw up the same ways the old one did, which means it’s no longer an exclusive party. If the race fought in the Reaper war, they get a voice. I’m done letting the asari, the salarians—even the turians—speak for races as tightly woven into the fabric of galactic society as the volus, the elcor, the krogan. I’m done with a two-tier system of voices in politics.”

Wrex’s gaze turned speculative, his expression as approving as Garrus had ever seen leveled at anyone not Shepard. Victus remained carefully, diplomatically still. Hackett’s human brows betrayed him.

“Something to say, Admiral?” Shepard asked, still mild, still not taking anything like no for an answer.

Hackett frowned, directing his reply to Garrus instead of Shepard. “There’s a human saying about too many cooks—”

“In the kitchen?” Garrus finished for him. “Yeah, I know that one. And I don’t care. If we can’t do things right—if we can’t make things better, right from the beginning—what’s the damned point? Why not let the Leviathans do what they want and make thralls of us all? The galaxy got trampled while the salarian dalatrass tried to blackmail Shepard, and while _for months_ the asari kept secrets that could’ve helped the war effort.” His mandibles flicked with frustration until he took a calming breath. “Even you two needed a hell of a lot of handholding before you decided to play nice, Wrex, Primarch. Humanity kept their own best hope for getting the jump on the Reapers in _lockup_ for six months, instead of listening to her. I don’t think the Leviathans will give us six months. And I’m not going to be a part of asking any race to fight an enemy so insidious without also giving them a voice.” Garrus took another deep breath and Shepard shifted her weight just enough to brush against his side in a manner that probably looked like an accident, but Garrus knew was anything but.

“We’ve got representatives from all races here on Earth,” Garrus said firmly. “But I want it completely understood that any Council we found now is temporary until such time as homeworld governments can be consulted, and choices for permanent Councilors best determined by whatever democratic processes the races involved deem appropriate. This isn’t a coup.”

“Yes, Sir,” Victus said sharply, smartly, without even a hint of irony.

And because he still wasn’t sure if laughing or keening was what he most wanted to do, Garrus settled for a nod he hoped looked more confident than he felt.

#

Garrus managed to hold his own calmly for the rest of the meeting, which he considered a feat on a par with the time they’d fought the thresher maw on foot during Grunt’s Rite of Passage, or fighting the horde of never-ending Banshees on that last push in London. Miranda explained in crisp, short sentences what she’d been asked to do at the Moira Callahan’s behest. The torture, Miranda revealed in the same cool, brisk voice she’d always used during mission debriefs for Cerberus, had come about because Shepard failed to assassinate Hackett, Wrex, and Victus at her earliest opportunity, and Moira knew it. The chatter as Moira attempted to put a new plan into action had been what finally alerted Liara to Miranda’s location, and a small strike team—Liara, Jacob, and Kasumi—had freed her. Emotionlessly, Miranda said she did not remember that part, and any questions ought to be directed to Liara. Liara’s expression was so grim no one asked any questions. Not publicly, anyway. Garrus, who’d been present for the debriefings at Shepard’s behest, felt his stomach twist in mute sympathy. Desperate for information, Moira had not pulled her punches. Either literally or figuratively. 

Garrus even got the opportunity to test the Councilor waters by ordering Alenko—as a Spectre, not an Alliance major—to assume command of the _Normandy_ when he protested. He wouldn’t have admitted it on pain of death, but it was satisfying. Beside him, Shepard held very still, her face very smooth, and Garrus knew she was secretly laughing. He just wasn’t sure if the amusement was directed more at him or Alenko. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Once they were safely back in Shepard’s cabin—a room Alenko flatly refused to take over, “On pain of resigning from the Spectres, Councilor Vakarian, _Sir_ ,”—Garrus dropped onto the couch and leaned his head against the wall, running the afternoon’s unexpected events back and forth, like a forensics tech looking for proof of vid tampering. He found nothing. Which meant the whole thing had probably been real, and not a figment of an over-exhausted imagination. When he felt the dip of the cushions as Shepard sat next to him, he turned his head and opened his eyes. She raised her eyebrows, daring him to give voice to the flurry of thoughts running circles in his head, so he obliged her. “I still don’t—I can’t really—what the hell were you doing throwing your weight behind Victus’ choice, anyway? Not that I don’t appreciate the vote of confidence, but you can’t be serious about it, not really.”

“Can’t I?”

“Shepard—you? Sure. Just about anyone in the galaxy would take a bullet for you—”

“And I’d take one for you,” she interrupted, firm and without hesitation. “Which, if you think about it, makes perfect sense.”

“Not really.”

“I’m a Spectre, Garrus. Taking bullets for the Council is part of the job description.” She took his face between her palms, bringing her forehead to his, and then letting her lips follow. “Not that it’s something I need to be told to do. Not in your case.”

“I’m not—I don’t see it. Me. Making those kinds of calls.”

Smiling softly, she raised her eyebrows in the infuriating way he associated with _I know something you don’t know_. “Garrus. Victus saw your worth after only a few months of working with you. You think he saw something I failed to? The reason I was so… you _know_ how bothered I was by the old Shadow Broker’s dossier. It’s because, on some level, I thought he was right. About you being overshadowed by me. To your detriment.”

“We talked about this, Shepard—”

“I know,” she said. “I know. You’re where you chose to be. But, look. You get a bad order, what do you do?”

“You’ve never given me a bad order.”

She rolled her eyes, swatting at his shoulder. “Flatterer. Seriously, though. You keep looking for intel on the rogue Spectre anyway. You flip the metaphorical finger at C-Sec and take off to Omega. You stand your ground until you’re taken seriously. You get things _done_ , Garrus. And people listen to you. Just as well as my own team has always listened to me. But there’s a difference.”

“You’re the savior of the galaxy?”

A shadow darkened her face, and she ducked her head, her hair falling to hide her eyes. “No,” she said so softly he had to lean closer to hear her. “When I get a bad order, I say, ‘Sir, yes, Sir,’ and end up sending an asteroid into a mass relay instead of bringing the backup I knew I should have brought. I play poster girl for the Alliance because they ask me to. I complete _every damned_ mission Hackett insinuates he might like me to look at. I… I destroy the Reapers—and EDI, and the geth—even though I had other options. Ones that might’ve worked, might’ve saved them.”

“You stole the _Normandy_.”

“Would I have, if not for Anderson?” Pushing the hair out of her eyes, she shook her head. “I’m not saying I don’t get creative when I’m on the ground, Garrus, but I take orders. It’s who I am. Or who I was, anyway.”

“And I still think you’re selling yourself short, so I think we’re agreeing to disagree on this one.” Garrus sighed. “I know you’re… you’re worried. About what Miranda did, and about how well the chip will work until we can undo all the things that were done to you. But I can’t let you sit this one out, Shepard. You have to know that.”

“I never intended to bench myself,” Shepard replied, bumping against him companionably. “But I can’t be the person calling the shots this time, Garrus. I can’t.”

“And you think I can?”

“Nah,” she said, right side of her mouth quirking upward. “I know it.” After the briefest of kisses to his mandible, she leaned back, narrowing her eyes. “I should warn you, though. Use air quotes at me even once, and I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

For the first time since Victus dropped his bomb, Garrus chuckled. “Ahh, Shepard. Always wondered what it would take to send you rogue.”

 


	59. With a Little Patience

“Well done,” Chakwas said as Solana managed, with intense effort and concentration, to take half a dozen unsteady—and unaided—steps. “Sheer bloody determination’s a Vakarian trait, I see.”

Solana laughed breathlessly, giddy at the progress. “You could say that. Though I think our mother was more than half to blame. She was—oh!” Her hand darted out, gripping the nearest bedrail in a successful, if awkward, attempt to keep herself upright.

Chakwas clucked and waved Solana onto the bed. “Let’s have a look, then. Pain?”

Solana shook her head. The doctor raised an eyebrow. The skeptical kind. She’d learned that much. Chakwas used that eyebrow often.

“No more than usual,” Solana amended. “Nothing new. I just overreached. My balance isn’t what it was.”

“Indeed.” Obviously unconvinced, Chakwas pulled up her diagnostic program and began the routine series of checks and tests. “I’m not seeing anything out of the ordinary, at least. No tenderness here? Nothing sharp?”

Solana shook her head. Chakwas fixed her with a firm glance, but Solana said, “I wouldn’t lie. I want to get back up on my feet. Permanently. I’m not stupid enough to set myself back weeks or months out of some misplaced pride.”

“Mmm, cleverer than your brother and Shepard both, then. You’ve never met a pair more likely to lie to you—or themselves—about their actual—oh, bloody hell. Unless it’s him, of course.”

Chakwas turned on a heel, storming out of the medbay before Solana could ask which _him_ she meant. Still perched on the bed, half expecting to see someone bleeding profusely or dragging their guts behind them, she was surprised to see only Kaidan in the mess, sitting with his back to her, head resting in his hand. Solana couldn’t hear what was spoken, but Chakwas tapped him on the shoulder and pointed, her command so clear and imperious it didn’t need words to back it. Still, Kaidan shook his head, gesturing at what looked to be an untouched tray of food. Chakwas’ head tilted dangerously, and Solana shuddered in sympathy. Moving slowly, reluctance clear even to her, Kaidan stood, running a hand back over his hair. He moved toward the medbay like a child sent to bed early, only stopping short of actually shuffling his feet.

He nodded a greeting as he entered, and Solana didn’t think she was imagining the pallor of his skin or the deeper furrows on his brow and at the corners of his eyes. When he turned his head, the light glinted off silver in his hair. More than there’d been when first they met, she thought. She’d asked Garrus about these things, and he’d only laughed and said she shouldn’t mention them; apparently humans were touchy about getting older. Humans. She didn’t think she’d ever understand them. Age was merely another scar, something survived, something to be proud of. It seemed foolish to resent the proof of life lived, and more foolish still to keep silent about it, as though aging required acknowledgment to be real. 

“You have a headache,” Chakwas said, once the door had slid shut. “You know better than to have let it go, Kaidan. It’s always worse when you’ve given it time to well and truly sink its claws in.”

He winced, bowing his head, and when he raised his eyes even Solana could make out the weariness in them. They remained slightly squinted, as if the medbay’s lights hurt him. “I’m fine. Like I said.” 

Chakwas shook her head. Solana found herself echoing the gesture, even though his words weren’t directed her way. “I don’t believe it when Shepard says it, and, forgive me, Major, you wear your emotions infinitely closer to the surface, and are an abominably bad liar to boot. You ought to know better.”

Instead of protesting further, he surrendered, crossing the medbay and hoisting himself up on the nearest bed. “Nothing that’ll knock me into next week, please. I need my wits.”

Chakwas snorted, pausing to roll her eyes at him over her shoulder before returning to her cabinets and, presumably, her search for an appropriate medication. “One might ask how effective your wits are when pain-addled. If, say, one was your doctor, and well aware what kind of agony your headaches induce.”

“I meant to come earlier,” he insisted. “Only one thing led to another, and then another, and even grounded, this ship doesn’t, in point of fact, run herself.”

“But what a challenge,” Solana said, glancing out into the mess with a faint pang of longing. “What a _command._ You’ve got to be at least a _little_ excited.”

“Excited,” Kaidan echoed, frowning at her. The word emerged strange and strained, like something he didn’t recognize the taste of. For a moment, she wondered if his translator had glitched, or if she’d said something unbearably rude. Maybe it was another bizarre human thing; maybe not talking about promotions was somewhere next to not talking about age on the conversational spectrum. “I… don’t think that’s how I’d’ve put it, exactly.” He smiled faintly as her flared mandibles betrayed her confusion. “Not your fault. You don’t have all the intel.”

“What a surprise,” Solana drawled. “And usually I’m the first person in the loop. Oh, wait.”

Kaidan didn’t rise to her jab. Instead, he took a breath, glancing toward the ceiling. Solana wondered what it meant. Nothing good. “I made the call that left Shepard alone on the Citadel at—at the end,” he said. Chakwas attempted to say something, to argue with him if her expression was any indication, but he spoke over her, louder. “It was my order. And everyone on this ship knows it. I thought it was the right—I was wrong. They all know _that_ , too. These aren’t my people. They won’t follow me. I don’t know what Garrus was thinking.”

“You think my brother is incompetent?”

Kaidan blinked, cheeks turning a bright red, and Solana saw firsthand the accuracy of the doctor’s earlier assessment. Kaidan really was easier to read than Shepard. “Of course not.”

“Then trust his judgment.” 

The crease of Kaidan’s brow and the sharp downward curve of his mouth told her he wasn’t convinced. Solana sighed, easing herself upright and taking the few tottering, uneven steps necessary to close the distance between them. Leg aching, she leaned heavily against the bed frame. “Look, no matter how much time he’s spent away from Palaven, Garrus is still turian. That’s all you really need to know.” 

Kaidan shook his head. “Not sure how that’s relevant to _this_ situation, really. I mean, this is still—nominally, anyway—a human ship, with a human crew. Shepard trusted _him_. Shepard wanted _him_ to step into her shoes. For good reason. And not, I think, because turianness had anything to do with it. He’s had her back since the beginning, whereas I—well. I doubted when I could’ve trusted. And then I added insult to earlier injury by continuing to question her after she’d proven herself. Shepard may have forgiven me—operative word being _may_ —but I’m damn sure her people never have. Including Garrus.”

“And yet he insisted you take the position.”

“I’ve got the rank. I’m a _Spectre._ Of course he had to name me.”

But Solana was already shaking her head. “No, you’re missing the point. Garrus is _turian_. We’re born into the Hierarchy. It’s what we are. It forms us before we know we’re being molded. We can’t really ever escape it.” Kaidan began to protest again, but Solana borrowed a gesture from Shepard and waved him into silence. She almost smiled when it worked, but smiling didn’t quite seem appropriate under the circumstances. “My brother wouldn’t entrust you with the responsibility if he didn’t think you could handle it. That’s the way the Hierarchy works. He must believe you have the skills to command the _Normandy_ , or he’d have chosen someone else, rank or Spectre-status be damned.”

Kaidan made a funny human sound deep in his throat she couldn’t have replicated. “I don’t think you understand my relationship with Garrus. He doesn’t believe in me. Honestly, sometimes I think he barely tolerates me.”

Solana grinned. “Oh, believing in you isn’t about liking or disliking. Primarch Victus saw something in Garrus. Garrus saw something in you. He’s responsible for you now. If you fail, the responsibility falls on him because he misjudged your ability and raised you to a place you weren’t ready for. If Garrus fails, responsibility falls on the primarch. Even if Garrus despised you—which I don’t think he does—it’s a real failure to overlook ability for personal reasons. Do you see?”

“I’m not sure I do, actually.”

“Have you ever been in a situation where you felt in over your head and completely unprepared to perform the task you’d been given?”

“Of… course.” If the shadow that passed over his face was any indication, some wound of this nature still lurked close to the surface. She wondered what it was, but didn’t need Garrus to tell her that line of conversation was _definitely_ going to be unwelcome, so she pretended to ignore the way his fingers opened and closed against his thigh. 

“See, the Hierarchy seeks to prevent that. Competence is promoted. The stigma of a demotion lies not with the individual demoted, but with the superior who raised them up beyond their capabilities. A turian who feels unequal to a task says so, instead of pretending otherwise. We’re taught from childhood to put the needs of the group above individual ambition.”

“And it works?”

“Not perfectly, of course. But yeah, it works.” She shrugged. “For us. Because it’s the system we’ve been refining for millennia. There are outliers, rogues, turians who walk away from everything they’ve known. I think… sometimes I think that’s what Garrus was trying to do when he left C-Sec. No matter how much grit got under his plates, he never could completely cut ties.”

“Is that why you think Primarch Victus made a mistake?” She blinked at him, tilting her head. Kaidan lifted his hands, turning them over helplessly. “Sorry. I assumed. It’s only… you didn’t seem convinced. Back there.”

“Ahh.” She sighed. “You have siblings?”

Kaidan shook his head.

“I suppose it’s harder to understand, then. You see your siblings at their best and their worst and everything in between, whether you want to or not. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile the memory of the boy who teased and tickled and took your stuff with the adult standing in front of you. It’s not that I think Garrus is incapable. The opposite, really.” She rubbed at the side of her neck. “I’ve seen firsthand how capable he is. But, if you’d asked me a couple years ago, I’d’ve laughed. I’d’ve told you, in no uncertain terms, just how useless I thought Garrus Vakarian was. I saw only my own pain, personal and all-consuming.” On Kaidan’s raised eyebrow she explained, “My mother was dying. Slowly. Horribly. I thought Garrus was avoiding his responsibilities by not coming home to help. I… didn’t know. What he was doing. How important it was. How big.”

“I understand a little of that,” he said softly, extending his arm for the shot of medication Chakwas had prepared.

“I think Solana might also tell you, from experience, there’s no point regretting the choices one makes before they have all available information,” Chakwas said softly, settling a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder. 

“True enough,” Solana agreed. “When Garrus came home, face blown to hell, with his tales of Reapers and Collectors and human Spectres, I was still too wrapped up in my own troubles to listen. I was still mad at him, and I thought, as excuses went, he really should’ve chosen something more believable. I’d spent years convincing myself he was reckless and selfish, that he cared nothing for everything he’d left behind, everything our family stood for.” Standing on her good leg, she kicked her new one back and forth, shaking out the lingering ache. “Sometimes you can love and hate someone with the same ferocity, in practically the same breath. I think that’s the way it goes, with siblings. You’d defend them with your last breath even if you want to shake them yourself.”

His lips twisted in a strange kind of smile. “Okay, maybe I do understand. A bit, anyway.”

Solana did smile at this. “When the primarch first spoke, I wasn’t thinking about the Garrus who pulled together a Reaper Task Force out of nothing by sheer force of determination, who stayed up countless nights trying to optimize logistics and solidify support, who kept insisting on ‘yes’ no matter how many times people said ‘no’. I was thinking about my _brother_. After everything he’s been through, after everything he’s already sacrificed, he gets handed one of the biggest responsibilities in the galaxy. I wouldn’t want to be him for a million credits.” 

She sighed again, rolling her neck. The crack of her spine brought no relief. “The galaxy needs people like them. The larger than life ones, the heroes, the ones you see on newsvids and that will get written about in history books. But I think _they_ need people like us. To remind them who they were before, who they are when no one’s looking.”

“So you’re saying I need to shut up, stop worrying, and do your brother proud?”

Solana chuckled, and Chakwas echoed it. “That’s precisely what I’m saying.”

#

Shepard was _not_ feeling sorry for herself.

Absolutely, definitely not.

Because she was _Commander Shepard,_ dammit,with an assortment of appellations each more alarming and overblown than the last, and the Hero of Elysium or the Citadel or the whole damned Galaxy did not waste time bemoaning her circumstances, no matter how reduced. She certainly didn’t sit alone in quarters that technically should have been relinquished to the _Normandy_ ’s new commanding officer—not that Kaidan was hearing any of it—putting together a model ship only in pieces because, in a fit of pique, she’d thrown it across the room. Not, she thought, that Sovereign deserved her attention. Really, it was exceedingly poor taste that the model existed to begin with. You didn’t commemorate _I am the Vanguard of your destruction_ with a _toy_. 

Stupid Sovereign. Stupid model. Stupid room with the same stupid music blasting on the radio.

She sighed. Loudly.

Fine.

She was, perhaps, wallowing ever so slightly in self-pity. The fish wouldn’t tell anyone. She wasn’t sure about Odysseus. She glanced up at the hamster, but he was safely hidden in his house. Probably sleeping, the lucky bastard. On the one hand, she knew she’d made the right call, taking herself off point. On the other, the feeling of uselessness was _awful._ She hadn’t felt so at loose ends since the years between Mindoir and joining the Alliance, when her primary function was looking pretty at parties and smiling politely at men thrice her age so Moira didn’t accuse her of being ‘sullen and ungrateful’. 

Deciding the very last thing she wanted to do was waste another moment turning over the problem of Moira Callahan, Shepard returned instead to her model, aligning one of the cracked pieces with its neighbor and running a thin line of adhesive over the seam. “Good as new,” she said. 

If only all cracks were so easy to repair.

Muttering at herself under her breath— _stupid talking to myself_ —she reached for another broken piece of her model, only to jump in her seat and drop it when the door chimed.

Assuming she was about to be paid a pity visit from one of her _Normandy_ crew because it was far too early for it to be Garrus, Shepard opened the door with a scowl. They all had too much work to do to waste valuable time keeping her company, and she was about to say so when she realized the young man standing on the other side of her door wasn’t anyone she’d have thought to expect.

“Hello, Commander Shepard,” David Archer said, eyes never quite meeting hers. She was used to that, though. If she’d seen what he had, she thought she’d probably have been a little uneasy making eye contact, too. He seemed taller than he had at Grissom Academy. Perhaps it was merely how straight he stood. “They didn’t want to let me in.”

“Persuasive little bugger,” Zaeed said. He’d actually hauled a pair of chairs up to her hallway, and currently sat in one with his feet propped up on the other, painstakingly cleaning one of his many guns. She didn’t miss the pistol at his hip, within easy drawing distance. It was a polite kind of fiction; they both of them knew she could probably take him, if it came down to an actual fight. He raised his eyebrows, as if he’d caught the tenor of her thoughts. “Remembered the whole goddamned mess soon as I saw his face. Maybe you both need a friendly chat.”

David winced, glancing past her into her quarters, both hands rising to cover his ears. It took a moment to realize he objected to the thudding beat of her ever-present music.

“Oh,” she said, with a sympathetic wince of her own, remembering his sensitivity to sound. And how it had come to be. “Let me get that.”

She jogged across the room, bringing the flat of her palm down on the radio to turn it off. For a moment, her ears rung, as if the silence was somehow louder than the music had been. Soon, though, the quiet gurgle of the fish tank filled the void, strangely soothing. David took a step into her cabin, just enough to let the door close behind him, and stood staring at the fish. Zaeed remained in the hallway, though Shepard suspected he’d be listening extra closely for anything out of the ordinary, ready to burst in with guns blazing. She sincerely hoped she never provided the impetus.

“The _Normandy_ computer is quiet,” David said at last. Very slowly, he lowered his hands and turned away from the fish tank.  “Why? It is not right.”

“I know,” Shepard agreed, pushing aside the pile of yesterday’s clothing to clear space for David on the end of her couch. He glanced at the spot, but did not sit, choosing instead to stare up at the glass case full of ships. After a moment, he raised a finger and pointed at the geth fighter. Shepard’s stomach twisted, but she kept her voice even. “The geth are also quiet.”

“It is not right. The square root of—no. Not counting. Not numbers. Not now. It is not right.” 

Shepard sat heavily, leaning forward and twisting her hands together to keep them from shaking. For a moment, she almost imagined she could feel the twinge of phantom pain, feel the weight of that last pistol in her hands, feel the rush of heat as the resulting explosion washed over her.

“Why?” David asked again, bringing her back to her cabin, her fish, her clothes strewn across obliging pieces of furniture, her tools still warm on the desk.

“The Crucible destroyed the Reapers,” Shepard said. “EDI and the geth had been altered by Reaper code. So I guess the Crucible didn’t differentiate.”

“They did not scratch like Reapers.” David gestured at his own head, mimicking an itch. His eyes met hers for a moment before sliding away again. “It is not the same. They should not be quiet.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” Shepard said, not quite able to swallow the bite of bitterness. “Sorry, David. I’m not mad at you.”

“I know,” he said. “The square root doesn’t change. A broken thing can be fixed.”

Shepard sighed. “Maybe not all broken things. People have been trying.”

He descended the steps and sat on the far end of her couch. Head bent, his lips moved silently.  She couldn’t make out what he was murmuring to himself. After a minute, he raised his head. His gaze met hers and did not immediately dart away again. “You did not leave me in the machine, but I remember it. I still remember it. It was so loud.”

“I’m sorry, David,” she repeated. “I wish we’d gotten there sooner, I wish you’d never—”

“No,” he said, unblinking. “You do not understand, Commander Shepard. I remember in a different way than anyone else. And I remember perfectly. It was before, before any scratching. I want to try. Square roots do not change. A broken thing can be fixed.”

“You mean—”

“I remember what it was, being with the machine. We could not speak the way my brother wanted. But I remember.”

“Oh,” Shepard said, bringing her hand to her heart, feeling the too-hopeful thud of it beneath her pressing fingers. “You want some help?”

David smiled, like a child opening a gift. “Yes,” he said. “That is what I want.”

“Then I’m your woman,” Shepard said, with a glance through the glass at the shattered bits and pieces of Reaper model on her desk.

With usefulness knocking at her door—or arriving unannounced in the form of David Archer—Sovereign could wait.


	60. Reflecting Light

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. If some kind of galactic governing body _had_ to exist, representation was important. For everyone, not just the big three (and a half) that’d been calling the shots for so long. Or hanging onto the status quo _instead_ of calling any shots at all. The galaxy had changed, had been shaken to its core, and rebuilding in the image of what had so obviously failed seemed beyond stupid.

Give everyone a say. Give everyone a voice. Make things fair.

Damn if it didn’t sound nice on paper.

Of course, Garrus’ bright idea had been spawned without taking reality into consideration. And reality was a room full of irritated, frightened aliens far from home, none of whom had much sense what interests, if any, they were representing. No one knew the state of their homeworlds. Most feared immeasurable losses, without being able to assuage those fears. He couldn’t blame them; the fiery blur of Cipritine as he’d last seen it from Menae still burned behind his eyes when he blinked, and too many voices had been too silent for too long even before the Crucible fired. 

Too many of the representatives so hastily gathered to form this new kind of council were warriors, concerned about battles and logistics and numbers, without the broader understanding of all the intricacies in play politicians might have brought to the table.

Garrus could safely say he’d never before _wished_ for politicians. And yet.

He wondered if Shepard would have a pithy human proverb to offer. Probably. He determined not to ask her. He didn’t want the pity. He definitely didn’t want to see her smile like she knew damned well she’d dodged the bullet now firmly lodged in his gut.

Mostly, though, he didn’t want his subharmonics to reveal how much he wished she were one of the warriors standing at his side, sitting on the Council. She knew him too well; she’d hear it right away. And then her smile would turn inward and turn sad. He’d done enough to cause that kind of smile, of late. He wasn’t going to add to it if he didn’t have to.

By the time he returned to the _Normandy_ , Garrus could barely keep his eyes open. A headache pounded in the back of his skull, keeping time with the regular, insistent protests of his empty stomach. The ship wasn’t particularly well-populated at the moment, though refit and repair crews busied themselves fixing everything they could manage without actually hauling her into drydock and putting her out of commission. Joker hovered in the CIC. Garrus knew the look the pilot wore all too well: he, too, had spent too many hours pacing outside the medbay while other hands tried to mend what was broken, what he himself was helpless to fix.

He fully expected to find Shepard holed up in their quarters, but the room was empty. And silent. The lack of music startled him more than Shepard’s absence. The model of Sovereign lay in a pile of shattered pieces on her desk, obviously abandoned mid-repair; he didn’t need his old detective skills to piece together how it had broken in the first place. Shepard never did well, deprived of industry. Garrus looked out into the hall again. Though his chair remained, Zaeed was nowhere to be found. Old panic twisted in Garrus’ gut, until he told himself—firmly, very firmly—she was likely down in the mess, or doing the truncated version of her rounds, or letting Sam Traynor beat her at chess, all with Zaeed grumbling and watchful at her heels. Someone would’ve sent for him if something—if anything—

_Surely_ someone would have sent for him.

Headache and hunger temporarily forgotten, he immediately returned to the elevator. Shepard wasn’t in the mess, but peeking through the windows revealed she wasn’t in the medbay—for a change—either. He was about to cross to Solana’s room when a knocking on the medbay window turned his head. Chakwas beckoned him in, and though he didn’t particularly want to chat, he obliged her.

“She’s been holed up in the AI Core for hours,” the doctor said, without preamble. “You do rather stalk about when you’re worried. I don’t believe you’ve anything to worry about, in this instance. She has a… project.”

“In the AI Core?” His heart sank a little. Another disappointment. Another failure. “You… you thought that was a good idea?”

Chakwas shook her head, rolling her eyes. “As if I have any say at all, once she’s mobile.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Oh, let her explain. She’ll only be irritated if I steal her thunder.”

Garrus’ mandibles flicked, part surprise and part annoyance, but he didn’t press further. Chakwas seemed remarkably sanguine, all things considered; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her so close to relaxed. New lines still fanned out permanently at the corners of her eyes, and the exhaustion of too many weeks insufficient rest lingered, but her smile was genuine. “And you?” she asked. “How went your Council meeting?”

Garrus swatted a hand vaguely. “I don’t want to ruin your good mood.”

“That well, then?”

He sighed. “My favorite part was when Javik stormed in and declared his resolution to speak for the Prothean people.”

This startled a little laugh out of her, which she politely covered with one hand. The hand did nothing to hide the sparkle in her eyes. “Of course he did. I’m afraid you ought to have seen that coming.”

“And yet,” Garrus retorted. “He didn’t use the word ‘primitives,’ which I’m counting as one for the win column.”

“What will you do?”

This time he added a shrug to his sigh. “What can I do? Fair’s fair. I guess it’ll all get revisited when the relays are fixed. This is a temporary government—a temporary measure—at best. We all know that.”

Chakwas nodded, and didn’t ask the question he knew she wanted to, so he answered it anyway, “It seems close. The technology exists, and the Reapers weren’t making things run on magic. Whatever code the Crucible fried, it didn’t destroy everything. Our mass effect drives still work. Hell, so does Traynor’s toothbrush. The tech wasn’t entirely dependent on the Reapers.”

“And yet?” she offered, echoing his words without sarcasm.

Garrus shook his head, pacing the small area between her desk and the opposite side of the room, though it was too narrow to be satisfying. “For months, Kasumi’s been gathering the best minds she could find—whether those in charge wanted them found or not—in order to point them at this problem as the one most in need of solving, no matter what anyone else said. Liara’s helping, now that Miranda’s been found. They’re making progress. It’s just so damned _slow._ ”

Chakwas leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs at the ankles and folding her hands at her waist. “And?”

He froze, but it took a moment for his limbs to get the message, and he stumbled. Chakwas didn’t laugh. “What’s waiting for us, when the relays are open again? The last word from so many systems was… dire. When we had word at all. And now…”

“And now you’re justifiably worried about the Leviathan threat, even with your sister’s alterations to EDI’s shielding measures and Shepard’s hope that they’ll back down if we block them from capturing slaves to do their bidding.”

He leaned against the counter and hunched his shoulders. “How many are there? How widespread? Have they already begun enthralling whole worlds still reeling from the damage the Reapers caused? What if we’re too late? Will we walk away from Earth only to face a new war at the hands of the friends and family we left behind?”

“Garrus,” Chakwas said softly, warningly. “You do the best you can. It’s all any of us can do.”

Garrus’ mandibles flicked. In acknowledgement? In frustration? Even he wasn’t entirely sure. “A lot more’s resting on me now. I can’t just hope for the best. I have to plan for the worst.”

He looked at the closed door to the AI Core before he could stop himself.

Chakwas steepled her fingers, tapping the fingertips together in a pattern. She glanced at the closed door, too, and let her gaze linger. “She’s not so fragile you can’t lean on her a little, you know. I think she’d prefer it.”

“Is that your professional medical opinion?” he asked with deceptive lightness. 

Chakwas, damn her, wasn’t taken in. She only shook her head the way she always did when he was busy protesting that shore leave or rest or medication or facial reconstruction surgery wasn’t necessary. “It is,” she said. “You’ve learned a great deal from Shepard over the years, Garrus, and most of it positive. But there’s not a bloody chance in the universe I’ll sit idly by while you slide into her terrible habit of shouldering things alone. Are we understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, without sarcasm, and was rewarded with a smile.

#

“About bloody time,” Zaeed said, heaving himself to his feet as Garrus entered. Shepard turned her head at once, and if Chakwas had looked almost-relaxed, Shepard looked downright joyful. It took Garrus aback. He nearly—what was the thing Shepard always said? He nearly pinched himself. To prove he wasn’t dreaming. “I’ve had to piss for an hour.”

The faint quiver of Shepard’s shoulders indicated barely-held laughter. Her eyes shone with it. Hooking a lock of loose hair behind her ear, she said, “I said I’d go with you.” 

“What you said was you’d go in and hold my goddamned hand,” Zaeed growled.

She did laugh at this. “Could’ve offered to hold something else, you know. If you’re so unwilling to have me out of… range.”

“Man doesn’t need any bloody help and he sure as hell doesn’t need goddamned company.”

Without another word, Zaeed stomped from the room. Shepard giggled again— _giggled_ —and got to her feet. She still moved a little stiffly, he noted; her left hip persisted in giving her trouble, and her right knee wasn’t much better. The scars were fading, though, as if they’d never been. It took him a moment to remember—really remember—the way she’d looked on the _Empire_ , empty-eyed and scarred and broken. She rubbed absently at her forehead, a habit she’d picked up only since Miranda’s confession. Her smile didn’t fade; the gesture was an unconscious one. He looked away to keep from drawing attention to it.

“You survived,” she said.

“Get back to me at the end of the week and we’ll see how true that is.” He softened the words with a flick of his mandibles, closing the distance between them to enclose her in a warm embrace. She still felt thin, and, despite Chakwas’ assertions, fragile. Her arms were strong, though, as they tightened around him. “I’m fine. It was fine.”

“Shepard fine?” she asked mildly. “Garrus fine? Or real fine?”

He snorted, his breath stirring her hair. “Real fine. Tired, hungry, nursing a headache, but fine.”

This time he felt the tremble of her silent laughter, instead of seeing it. “God, Garrus, we have an absolutely _awful_ interpretation of the word _fine._ ”

He acknowledged this with a grunt, then bent to press his forehead to hers for a moment before parting. “You gonna tell me what all this is about?”

Shepard glanced around as his gesture encompassed the narrow room. Stacks of datapads and a pair of portable terminals littered the floor and every available surface. He recognized Shepard’s tools lying on the bench next to EDI. EDI still lay where Garrus had left her, though Shepard had pulled back the covering shroud. He found he couldn’t let his gaze linger there too long; months later, he still wanted to keen, wanted to forget the look he’d seen on Joker’s face as understanding sank in. He glanced away, shifting his weight uncomfortably. 

And yet? For the first time since the _Normandy_ crashed, the AI Core didn’t feel like a tomb.

As if plucking this thought from the air, Shepard nodded. “We’ve been thinking about it the wrong way.” She crossed to EDI and rested her palm against the lifeless cheek. “If an organic body stops, we call it death, and there’s no arguing with it.” Her lips twisted. “Present company excluded. EDI and the geth were alive, but weren’t organic. Even the Reapers were that awful—well. You were there. You saw what they were doing past the Omega-4. David believes—”

He cocked his head, confused. “David?”  

Shepard paused, nodded, and explained, “Archer.”

“Not the kid from—”

“Yes.” The single word was a bullet of controlled rage he had no doubt she’d have turned on Gavin Archer in a heartbeat. Her experience on Aite remained one of the things she’d never spoken of. Not even to him. She’d emerged from the strange state and hadn’t let the kid out of her sight until they entrusted him to Grissom Academy. 

She closed her eyes briefly, gathering herself, building her armor out of scraps and determination. “Yes,” she repeated. “David. He’s convinced there’s still hope.”

This time Garrus didn’t even bother trying to hide the startled widening of his mandibles. “Tali—Traynor—Solana— _countless_ others… they’ve been trying, Shepard.”

“I don’t doubt it. But none of them can look at this problem the same way David can. And I might be able to help—no one else was able to… to do what I did, on either Aite or later, with Legion.” She tapped her temple with one fingertip. “Regular riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. But at least this time it might be useful. Besides, your sister did start making progress.” Shepard waved a hand at a stack of datapads. “Until she got distracted by the problem I represented.”

And the one _he_ did, Garrus knew, though he didn’t speak the words. He leaned back, hiding his discomfort behind a mask of nonchalance. Shepard, of course, did not look the slightest bit convinced. “Did she? She didn’t say.”

“Pretty sure she didn’t want to raise anyone’s hopes. Still, what’s heartening is that she and David seem to have come to similar conclusions without consulting one another.”

“And those conclusions?”

“Synthetic life existed before it… interfaced with Reaper code, and life wasn’t dependent on that code. We’ve been trying to understand it through the organic life bias.”

Garrus nodded slowly. “Working with the assumption that, like organic life, what’s assimilated can’t easily be removed or extracted—or deleted—without irreparably harming the subject.”

“Like a blood transfusion.” Shepard smiled, tapping another datapad. “If you pump me full of someone else’s A negative to keep me alive, the blood becomes mine. I can’t exist without it. If you mistakenly use B positive, I’ll die.”

“But was the Reaper code a transfusion of B positive? Or was it an organ that, while necessary at the time, could potentially be replaced with another?”

“My hope—and David’s, and Solana’s—is that it’s the latter. Though even that’s thinking too organically about it, really. Synthetic systems have backups, they have versions. EDI started life as the Luna Base VI, begging for help in binary code. The geth were created, only to grow beyond their creators. Some progress may be lost if we manage to… reboot them, or rebuild them, but perhaps not all.” Her smile turned bitter again. “Just a different kind of amnesia. Maybe I can be helpful there, too. Or Miranda can.”

He shook his head, but not to argue. “But… if it were that simple, why has no one been successful at resuscitation? If I make a mistake in the Thanix firing algorithms, it doesn’t fire the way I want it to, sure, but I can comb through everything I did and find where things went wrong.”

“Ahh,” she said, with the satisfied expression of a professor whose prize student had asked exactly the right question. “I think it’s because life protects itself.” Shepard leaned over abruptly, pressing a swift kiss to his mandible. “Whatever the Crucible did either corrupted or deleted Reaper code. That seems obvious by the evidence left behind. It didn’t, however, destroy _everything_ synthetic. The _Normandy_ still flies. Communications still work—at least where the Relays aren’t required. Our datapads and computer systems didn’t all simultaneously self-destruct. I’m still functioning—healing too quickly, needing less sleep, you know the drill.” 

“Still think you could stand to eat more. If you’re looking for an opinion.”

Gazing past him, momentarily lost, she gave no indication of hearing him. She rubbed her forehead again, like she was fighting a headache. Or chasing the ghost of a memory. His own head ached in sympathy. “I think—it’s all a mess. Things got so scrambled, at the end. The Illusive Man died. Then Anderson. I was next, bleeding out. I remember that. The heat of the blood spilling over my hands, and I knew it was too much even for Cerberus’ cybernetics to manage. I was… it was peaceful almost. But something was wrong. I could hear the panic in Hackett’s voice; he was trying to hide it, but I heard. The Crucible wasn’t firing. And then there was this kid, this kid I tried to save. But he died in Vancouver; I saw him die. And then there was a choice.”

She jumped from fragment to fragment of memory like the Hammerhead crossing a river of lava, and Garrus could see the burn of it behind her eyes. “Shepard, it’s not important—”

“But it is. But it is.” She blinked. Her expression cleared. She looked at him; he saw her see him. “The kid implied I’d die, too. So many synthetic upgrades. Something. But I didn’t. Which means maybe, in an effort to preserve itself, the Intelligence was lying. Or was programmed to lie. Because—”

“Because life protects itself,” he echoed. 

She nodded, sweeping her hand around in a circle to encompass the room. “Even EDI never left backups unprotected; it would have been too easy for a hostile program to infect her, otherwise, and God knows she had a taste or two of that before she was unshackled. Artificial intelligence—artificial life—has evolved to be paranoid. For good reason, sadly. We have to figure out how to break the code in order to even have a restoration point. But I think it can be done. David thinks it can be done. Solana was starting to think it could be done.”

“Tali? Traynor?”

“I wanted to poke around myself before… well. Before getting hopes up.” Her head tilted, more a turian gesture of wryness than a human one. He understood her perfectly well. “You know how it is.”

He nodded gravely. 

“David’s bringing his own research tomorrow; we’re going to comb through it. I think I’ll bring Tali in, then. She has insight on the geth—a different perspective, even, than David’s. But I…” A little of the distance returned, just for a heartbeat. “I’d still like to keep things relatively—”

“You don’t want to hurt Joker.”

“I really don’t want to hurt Joker.”

Garrus looped an arm around her shoulders and pressed her tight to his side. Chakwas, he decided, was right once again. Despite appearances, Shepard wasn’t fragile at all. Not where it counted. “Sorry,” he said, without explaining. She lifted bemused eyebrows, but didn’t ask, only slinging her arm around his waist in a comforting embrace of her own.

And his stomach growled.

Loudly.

Shepard froze, like she’d just caught movement at her three, and laughed, which appeared to shake off the worst of the encroaching melancholy. “Message received. Dinner? Maybe upstairs? You can tell me all about _your_ day.” The smirk she angled up at him was eerily, terrifyingly impish. “I’m sure Javik made things interesting. Was there bloodshed?”

Garrus narrowed his eyes. “Tell me you didn’t know what he was planning.”

She winked, and laughed again. “You were the one sending engraved invitations to every race in the galaxy.”

He groaned. Also loudly.

Her smile was, in fact, very much the smile of someone who knew damned well she’d dodged the bullet now firmly lodged in his gut, but he could hardly resent her for it. He hadn’t seen her this cheerful in—in a long time. A very long time, and cheer was such a vast improvement over the alternative, even if it was partly at his expense. “Hope you’re ready to use your powers of veto, otherwise I’m afraid the prevalence of airlock justice is going to grow exponentially.”

Leaning his scarred mandible against the top of her head, he murmured, “Warning would have been nice.”

“And ruin the surprise? I may be a useless primitive, but damn, Vakarian. I bet the look on your face was priceless.”

“Mmm,” he said, pitched low and gravelly. This time her shiver was not laughter. “I’ll have you know I’m a very powerful man now, Shepard. I’ll have my vengeance.”

“I’m kind of counting on it,” she agreed, trailing her fingertips none-too-subtly down the curve of his waist. “But dinner first. I’m starving.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to briefly thank everyone for their patience during this unanticipated (and painfully long) hiatus, and to ask forgiveness from all those who sent me wonderful notes and emails and feedback that I didn't reply to. I'm going to try harder to stay on top of things. Thank you all so much for reading, and for sticking with me.


	61. When We Were Children

Shepard glanced up from her datapad the moment the door opened. She’d been trying her damnedest to think like EDI, and mostly failing. Whole pockets of information were so deeply encoded they looked like gibberish, even to her. Even the combined efforts of Tali, Sam, and Solana had managed to scrape back only a few layers of EDI’s complicated defense strategies and encryption techniques. What had served so well in preventing hacking attempts now had Shepard beating her head against the metaphorical—and, truth be told, sometimes physical—wall. 

Grunt, relieving an irritated Zaeed of guard duty, poked his head inside her quarters and said, “Someone here to see you, Shepard.”

“David?”

“The kid? No. Alliance. Some Lieutenant Callahan.” Grunt paused, eyes narrowing. “Relation to the one in the brig?”

Shepard considered sending Nicholas away sight unseen, pleading work or exhaustion or just plain dislike—any would have been adequate reason enough for Grunt—but instead she set the datapad down, rose, and pushed her fingers through her hair to rid it of the worst tangles. 

“Yeah,” she said, pulling her hair into a ponytail swiftly growing too long to be strictly regulation. “Better send him in.”

Grunt’s grunt was something between skeptical and conciliatory. “You sure? I’m good at saying no.”

This made her chuckle. “I couldn’t ask for a better bouncer, but I can handle this one.” She paused, laughter freezing in the back of her throat. “Though if I—if I come through that door later and don’t sound like myself, you know what to do.”

His steady, unblinking gaze didn’t leave hers. Finally, he nodded, without reluctance or regret. “Battlemaster.”

She returned his nod with equally grave solemnity, but as soon as the door closed behind him, she rearranged her posture. She wanted to catch Nicholas off-guard. He’d be expecting cool, perhaps even angry, but not indifferent. Borrowing a little of Garrus’ swagger, she leaned against her desk, crossing one ankle over the other, tilting her chin in a gesture just shy of confrontational. 

The last time she’d seen Nicholas Callahan, it had been her eighteenth birthday, and he’d been tinkering with the engine of a car. Moira hadn’t particularly approved of the hobby—Moira didn’t particularly approve of much, but she especially disliked anything remotely connected to _filth_ —but Vincent thought all boys ought to be allowed to get their hands dirty. He always said it with a leer. His father’s father’s father had been someone important in automobiles, and though they maintained people to care for and drive their vehicles, both ground and sky, once in a while Vincent would go out and tinker, making Moira scowl when he arrived at the dinner table with an artful smear of oil across his cheekbone but hands scrubbed so clean Shepard doubted he’d dirtied them at all.

The last time she’d seen Nicholas Callahan, it had been her eighteenth birthday, and she’d been stealing one of the cars from the garage he’d been working in.  

Then, Nicholas had been nineteen and aimless, not certain what course of studies he wanted to follow, not certain what career he might choose—or have chosen for him. If he had opinions, he never voiced them. Even after almost two full years living under the same roof, Shepard couldn’t have identified Nicholas’ favorite color or favorite music, let alone his political leanings or hopes and dreams. 

On her eighteenth birthday, he’d slid out from under the belly of a car, real and not artful oil on his face, and frowned at her. He hadn’t said anything. Not even a hello or a “What the hell are you doing out here?” (She’d never been allowed to play with car engines, even though she was still her father’s daughter and could figure out just about any tech if she had the chance. Moira was absolutely _intransigent_ on that point.) A single shout could’ve undone all her careful plans. A single word could have banished her back to the white room with its white furniture and the white dress she was meant to wear to the party Moira Callahan had so painstakingly planned without once consulting her. A kind of debutante ball. A thinly-veiled auction: one lovely Mindoir survivor to the highest bidder. Social standing or political clout considered in lieu of monetary compensation.

Maybe because of the silence, maybe because Nicholas didn’t question her like Moira would have or ogle the way Vincent always did when he found her alone, she’d paused before getting in the car, looked over her shoulder, and said, “You don’t belong to her, you know. She doesn’t own you.”

He hadn’t said anything to that, either. Or if he did, she was too far away to hear it, speeding like a bat out of hell toward a future she hoped would have no more Callahans in it. She’d spent the first twenty minutes with her eyes fixed on the road behind instead of before her, certain she’d hear sirens or see flashing lights, or that a pair of the black vehicles the Callahans sometimes employed would sidle up beside her, and large men in dark uniforms would bundle her into the back seat. Or a trunk. 

Caught hard by the memory, Shepard shook her head, realized her shoulders had crept up toward her ears, and that instead of nonchalant, she probably looked more like an animal backed into a corner, ready to either fight or flee. Which wouldn’t do at all.

The door opened just as Shepard finished schooling her features. Nicholas stopped just over the threshold, snapping to sharp and immediate attention, and saluting her with precision she never would have imagined him capable of. His uniform was so immaculate that even though she searched for a mistake or a wrinkle in his presentation with her most critical eye, she found nothing. 

He’d inherited his mother’s height and leanness, but his father’s darker coloring. He kept his hair shorter than she remembered, and a scar still pink with newness echoed the one already healing on her own cheek. He no more looked nineteen than she looked eighteen, and though she had known this would be the case, somehow seeing his older face and the faint threads of silver just beginning at his temples still startled her.

There’d always been something sullen about him, in the years she lived in his house. Perhaps, she thought now, her presence had been some small part of it; she’d never reached out to him in friendship, and Moira had often delighted in pitting them against one another to earn treats and attention. Like dogs. Very pampered, very abused little dogs.

Sullen wasn’t the word she’d apply now. She didn’t know what to make of him. His expression gave her little, though she noted the way his eyes gazed past her, into the distance. And not, she thought, because he was admiring her collection of model ships.

“At ease, Lieutenant,” she said, evenly, without sarcasm. He flinched ever so slightly at the sound of her voice. She didn’t move away from the desk to greet him, and didn’t offer him the seat she’d offered David Archer the day before. “I suppose you’re here to inquire after your mother.”

This brought his eyes to meet hers; he blinked and even before he shook his head, Shepard realized she’d guessed wrong. Her surprise was enough to bring her fully upright again, ankles no longer crossed, desk no longer supporting her.

“No, Ma’am,” he said, and unless Nicholas Callahan was a better actor now than he’d been when she last knew him, he meant it. “I’m here to offer my apology, to share some information, and to remand myself into your custody.”

“My _custody_?” she asked, fighting not to shift uneasily from foot to foot, fighting to keep her surprise from coloring the tone of her voice. She wished for a uniform, for the armor of dress blues instead of sleep-tangled hair and yesterday’s t-shirt. She wished for the N7-painted familiarity of her hardsuit. Whatever she’d expected from the sudden appearance of this particular face from her past, it sure as hell wasn’t _this._ “Care to explain?”

Nicholas did not appear to notice either her state of dress or her focus on maintaining a sliver of authority. Despite her insistence on ease, he stood stiff as any soldier at full attention under the eyes of his most superior commanding officer and said, “Yes, Ma’am. I believe I am an accessory to the crimes committed against you. I believe I allowed familial affection and responsibility to outweigh my duty to the Alliance, and to you. It was… unintentionally done, but no less damaging. I believe my infraction, especially as it occurred during wartime, warrants a court-martial.”

Shepard sighed. Nicholas’ brow furrowed briefly before returning to its impression of marble. “Are you giving me attitude, soldier?” she snapped, and his shoulders stiffened even more, his chest puffed even further out. “Or didn’t you learn what ‘at ease’ means? It’s making my back hurt just looking at you.”

His polished, professional demeanor cracked a little, fingers twitching before folding at his back, a fraction of tension leaving the precise line of his spine, but the lapse was borne of confusion. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips, and he blinked several times rapidly. His voice cracked on the second syllable when he said, “I should have known better.”

“Than to show up and speak in riddles? Yeah. Not a fan.”

He glanced down at the floor beneath his feet and said, “I’m sorry, Ma’am. I—she said she was helping you. She said she had… resources.” His shoulders lifted briefly and sank again. “You know that’s true. I thought she was helping with the war effort.” A little genuine anger seeped into his tone, though Shepard couldn’t tell if he was mad at Moira or himself. “Not sure how she thought she’d turn goddamned Reapers to her advantage. Pardon my language.”

Shepard’s snort sounded, even to her own ears, dangerously close to laughter. “If anyone could, you know it would be your mother. But I’m not your CO, Lieutenant. Hell, I’m not even sure how connected I am to the Alliance right now. Shouldn’t you be having this conversation with Admiral Hackett? You’re on his personal staff. If you’ve let someone down, it’s him.”

He bent his head like a child expecting punishment and knowing better than to argue. “Yes, Ma’am. It’s only…” His tone shifted toward the unmistakably pleading, which brought back memories she’d long since pushed down and forgotten of small kindnesses—chocolates left in her room when Moira was on one of her diet rampages; pretty bits of colored ribbon for her hair when everything around her was unrelentingly white; hints of what might have been sympathy, if she’d been paying attention, if she’d been willing to see it for what it was. “Some of the apologies I need to make go pretty far back. And some of the information… well, it’s more relevant to you than to the admiral.” He cleared his throat and lifted his eyes to meet hers. “Also, I wanted to thank you. Personally. I… never thought I’d get the chance.”

She glanced over her shoulder; the panel over her bed was a dull grey, but a little rain never killed anyone. “About time for a little fresh air anyway,” she remarked, shrugging into a hooded sweater. “We’ll have a krogan bodyguard of the shoot-first-questions-later, set-C-Sec-vehicles-on-fire variety.” Shepard tapped her temple with a pair of fingers. “Nothing like a compromised super-soldier to have everyone on full alert.”

Nicholas nodded, and she found herself admiring how well he rolled with the punches. She almost changed her mind and offered him a conversation and a dance, Jimmy Vega style, to see if his demeanor would stand the physical as well as metaphorical, but decided against it because of the inevitable audience it would attract. She’d kept her past private for a long time, for a lot of reasons, and wasn’t about to start baring her soul and her secrets to anyone lounging around the hold.

Grunt said nothing when Shepard informed him of the change of location. He turned a glower both menacing and warning Nicholas’ way before falling in at a respectful distance. She was pleased to note the way Nicholas’ eyes tracked through every room they crossed; he seemed genuinely impressed with the _Normandy,_ and the unguarded awe in his eyes softened her a little more. “She’s beautiful,” Nicholas said without prompting, fingers twitching as if they meant to reach out and caress a wall or a bit of machinery.

“She’s that,” Shepard agreed, waiting for him to precede her out the airlock and into the cool outdoors. “Also tough. Resilient. Fast. Sneaky. She’s a good ship.”

She couldn’t quite name the expression hanging on his features, but it made her just uncomfortable enough that she stumbled over her tongue to change the subject. “So, Lieutenant. You want to start? I’ve got a lot of skills, but reading minds isn’t one of them. More’s the pity.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I—” For the first time, she saw him genuinely discomposed. His step faltered for a moment and he turned his palms up like someone looking for the cheat sheet he’d prepared before a test only to find it illegibly smudged. A little of the confused nineteen-year-old shone through. “I’ve been reading your reports.”

She made a face. “In that case, maybe I’m the one who ought to be apologizing to you.”

He didn’t laugh. Unfortunate. Garrus would’ve instantly volleyed back with a smart remark. Behind them, Grunt’s barely-heard _heh_ proved he’d been amused, at least. Nicholas only looked all twisted up in knots; she half-expected him to fling himself prostrate at any moment. Well. The ground _was_ muddy. Perhaps she’d let him. Instead, she relented. “Hardly a capital offense, Lieutenant. You’re on Hackett’s staff. If I understand correctly, you’re even in communications. You must have clearance.”

Shepard glanced slantwise at him as they walked, just in time to catch the echo of something distressed caught in the lines at the corners of his mouth. He said, “I wouldn’t be so sure about the offense. Feeding classified information to an outside source—family connections notwithstanding—during wartime is, I believe, the very definition of capital. But that’s not—well, that’s not the only reason I bring it up.”

The misty drizzle wasn’t quite forceful or disruptive enough to be called rain. Shepard found she didn’t mind it much; days where fog rolled in off the water and clung to the mountains masked some of the damage done to the city. And rain smelled of rain. Not death, not smoke, not old wounds. She inhaled deeply, and Nicholas must’ve thought she was about to speak because he interrupted stumblingly, “It’s the Leviathans.”

“You really do have clearance,” Shepard said, unable to keep the query from her tone. Mist dampened her cheeks, droplets sparkling on her peripheral vision as they caught in her eyelashes. She tilted her chin, focusing on the sky so she would not remember the crushing pressure of water all around her; the mech beeping with alarm; the Leviathan walking so effortlessly through her mind, plucking out images and voices; the taste of blood on her lips. “I hate to break it to you, but we did figure that part out already.”

Nicholas just shook his head. “In your report, you detailed the procedure you used to… make contact with the Leviathans. To track them. Trace them. Using the connection already present in Ann Bryson. And the artifact.”

“Not to mention very complicated algorithms, a dea—a currently out of commission AI, and a map in a lab likely reduced to rubble.”

For the first time, his adherence to protocol wavered, a little heat fueled his reply, and his cheeks bloomed an angry pink. “Since when do you give up so easily?”

Shepard stopped and turned so sharply that Nicholas’ foot slipped in his effort to keep pace with her, and he went down to one knee in the mud. Undaunted, he scrambled back to his feet and faced her, heedless of the dirty trousers so at odds with his otherwise meticulous appearance.

“You do not know me,” Shepard said coldly, each word a bullet. Nicholas didn’t flinch, though she saw each hit him, with force. Behind him, Grunt tilted his head an a very _do you want me to kill him, battlemaster_ way. She flicked the stand down gesture at him and he shrugged, but subsided. “You wanted to apologize? Fine. I accept. But my brig’s full-up with Callahans I don’t know what to do with. I don’t need another one. If your heart’s set on that court-martial, you’d better take it up with Hackett.”

“All you see when you look at me is the kid I was at eighteen, nineteen. I get it.” Like the muddied uniform, his sharp tone was very much at odds with his still-precise, still-respectful demeanor. “But if you hadn’t known me then, if you didn’t know my parents, if I were some bland-faced, unknown lieutenant on the admiral’s service, I think you’d hear me out. Unless I read all those reports wrong. Maybe I did.”

Shepard took a step toward him; he didn’t back down. A spark of genuine anger lit kindling she’d been building since the moment she woke up and realized the whole goddamned game had changed while she’d been sleeping. Dying. Coming back to life. _Again._ “You angling to add insubordination to that list of crimes, Callahan?”

“If it gets around the self-pity you’re wallowing in and makes you listen? Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Shepard’s mouth opened but, for the first time in recent memory, words failed her. If she’d been carrying a weapon, she might have drawn it. 

And she knew, oh she _knew_ , it would have been the ultimate case of shooting the messenger.

Because he wasn’t wrong.

“I told you,” he said, a little more quietly, with a little less heat, “I’ve read your reports. I know what doesn’t make it into the newsvids, and I know the spin on what does.” He paused, looked thoughtful, and then added, “I know all about the role Admiral Hackett built for you, and I know how tirelessly you’ve toiled on his behalf without question or complaint.” 

When Shepard said nothing, he sighed, glancing skyward, cheeks glistening in the damp. “Ma’am, you’ve got commendations and medals and the whole galaxy’s well-deserved respect. And awe. But I also know you have to be forced to take leave; that you’ve avoided Earth as assiduously as most people avoid batarian space since the day you _borrowed_ that car and ran; that someone, somewhere, made a note in my personnel file indicating I was barred from any deployment you were on, _no exceptions_.” Shaking his head, he almost smiled. “I’m sure you can imagine my mother’s irritation with that. So. If I know all that, you think I _don’t_ know how Moira Callahan can get under your skin? My skin? _Anyone’s_ skin?”

“She took it a bit literally with me,” Shepard replied, startled to hear the defeat. Startled to realize how acutely she _felt_ it. Just when she’d been making so much progress.

“And you’re Commander Shepard, for God’s sake,” Nicholas said, flinging a hand wide, his gesture encompassing the _Normandy_ , Grunt, the damned planet. “You’ve survived worse. So you’ve got to get out from under her goddamned thousand-credit stiletto heel before you bleed out. She doesn’t own you, either. No matter how much money she poured into you.”

“Noted, Lieutenant,” she said, for the first time wondering if his placement on Hackett’s service hadn’t _entirely_ been purchased by Moira’s money. “You really do bleed Alliance blue, don’t you?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Her lips turned up with a little too much irony to be a real smile, but it was close. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

His answering almost-smile was timid. “We didn’t get off to a great start. I’m… sure you thought I was a bottom-feeder of the worst kind.”

She flushed slightly, all the more noticeable because the air and the drizzle were so cool. “I—”

He lifted one shoulder. “You weren’t wrong. About who I was back then. I’d like to believe you might be a little bit wrong about who I am now.”

“Says the officer pleading with me for a court-martial?” she asked, lifting an amused brow. “What do you say we put in a pin in that for now, and deal with the information you wanted me to have.”

This time, she didn’t interrupt as he revisited her report about the Leviathans. She still wasn’t certain they could trace with the same accuracy EDI might have allowed, but the _Normandy_ would have records, and with a few tweaks, she didn’t see why they couldn’t program the ship’s galaxy map to function in at least a passable facsimile of the one they’d used in Bryson’s lab. Nicholas made good points. Good enough that she thought she’d see about having that note about deployment removed from his file. A trace might allow them to go on the offensive; might allow for attack instead of desperately trying to predict what new horror might be done _to them._ Still a long shot, but long was better than none at all. Any chance was better than sitting around waiting for enslavement or death. Especially if they were able to fine-tune shields to keep the Leviathans out of their heads.

“We’d need an artifact,” Shepard said, tapping her chin.

Nicholas’ lips compressed, turned pale. A trickle of rain ran down the side of his neck, and he brushed at it absently, the way someone swats at a mosquito without registering the cause of the itch. “Most were deployed behind enemy lines, but… I know where you can find one. Reliably.”

He didn’t need to say it. A shiver ran the length of Shepard’s spine and she couldn’t pretend it had anything to do with rain or cool breezes off the water. 

“You’re Commander Shepard,” he repeated, hardly louder than a whisper. “It’s just a house.”

_She can’t breathe._

She swallowed. Hard. Inhaled. Sharply. Pulled as much damp air into her lungs as they would take. It smelled of moist earth and flowers. Not roses. Not gardenias. Held that breath until it burned. Released it slowly. Took another. After the third, Grunt said, “Shepard?”

She hadn’t seen him move, but the large, reassuring bulk of him was at her shoulder, hand poised to either hold her up or kill her; she wasn’t certain. She trusted him to make the right call, as necessary. She nodded, as much for herself as for him. “It’s just a house,” she echoed. “But I’m not bringing Ann Bryson into this. Not again.”

Nicholas’ brow crumpled, dark brows nearly touching over the bridge of his nose. “But she’s the connection, Commander. The conduit.”

Shepard shook her head, the weight of her own hair heavy, the weight of her decisions heavier still. “It’s me they want. If they’re going to show themselves for anyone, it’ll be me.” She closed her eyes briefly, pinching the bridge of her nose, denying the damned echo of roses she couldn’t be smelling. “You want to catch the big fish, you have to dangle the right bait, Nicholas. That’s the way it works.”

“Ma’am,” he said, he reluctantly agreed, with the same hopelessness of a convicted criminal whose just felt the hangman’s noose slide around his neck. 

She knew precisely how he felt.


	62. Tolling Reminiscent Bells

_It’s not like the other dreams._

_She knows she’s dreaming, for one thing. And she’s alone. No wide-eyed child bearing cookies, no screwdriver-wielding teenager. No broken doll made up of doctored memories and might-have-beens, dressed in muddied virginal white. No dead woman in pink and white, or patent Mary Janes, offering death or forgiveness or hope._

_It’s just a dream. Just a dream._

_When she touches her stomach, her fingers do not come away stained with blood. When she touches her forehead, she cannot feel the strings that have been pulled, the knots untied, the pieces of the puzzle jammed together all wrong._

_And yet the ache remains._

_The ache always remains._

_She’s wearing armor in this dream, black to hide bloodstains, black to hide amongst the shadows, the familiar lifeline of red and white stripes down her arm reminding her who she is, what she does. She’s got a full arsenal on her back, but her hands are empty._

_Standing alone at the base of the stairs leading up to the grand front entrance—it’s wide enough to drive a skycar through; she used to fantasize about doing just that—the cold weights her down, hurts her bones. She’s so cold she thinks she’ll shatter at the slightest touch, like she’s been dipped in liquid nitrogen. One wrong move and it’ll all go to hell. The gentlest brush of a hand and she’ll break along all the almost-visible fault-lines. She’s been putting herself back together slowly, slowly, but it’s all so fragile. Foolish to have believed it was anything but._

_It’s a reverse of the dream she used to dream when she lived in this house, when she counted days and lay in her white room on her white bed trying to remember the precise color of her mother’s eyes or the sound of her father’s laugh. Then, she dreamed she was running, fleeing. Climbing down a non-existent trellis, making a rope of all the sheets she could find, cutting her hair and dyeing it black (to hide bloodstains, to hide amongst the shadows, to disappear and let the girl she’d been die the way she ought to have done on Mindoir)._

_Now she knows she must enter. Now she knows to flinch is cowardly, and she’s no coward. That’s what the white and red stripes mean. She thinks. She hopes._

_She takes a step and does not shatter to pieces when her foot makes contact with the first stair. The cold doesn’t ebb, nor does the ache, and from somewhere far away she hears a child crying, but she does not smell flowers. It’s important, she thinks. No flowers. No rain. Just looming clouds and her stripes and the certainty that she is stronger than this._

_The second step is harder than the first. She has to stop on the sixth, and still the stairs stretch out endlessly before her, as if she’s made no progress at all._

_As if she’s made no progress at all._

_She reaches for a gun. She’s missed holding a gun. Even in the dream, she hardly trusts herself with it. And yet the heft and weight of the pistol feels right, feels like coming home. Real home, not this white castle with its white walls filled with monsters wearing pretty masks. (She has a lot of blood on her hands now, a lot of blood. Maybe she’s a monster, too. Maybe that’s why the gun in her hand feels like home. How many people has she killed? Could it be her mask is only so familiar it feels like a real face? So real she’s forgotten what face she used to wear? Would her dead parents recognize her anymore? Would they turn away to hide their horror, to hide their tears? Somewhere, somewhere a child is crying. She thinks maybe it’s her.)_

_A hundred years later, a lifetime, she reaches the top of the stairs. Her gun trembles in her hand. She, who has gone days without food and sleep, humping a pack nearly as heavy as she is through hostile wilderness, can hardly stand._

_It’s just a dream. But it feels like more than that._

_Instead of the wide entrance she remembers, she finds a pair of smaller doors. Identical. They’re like the ones in the_ Normandy _, complete with panels to the side indicating the door’s status. One flashes red; the other’s green. She’s always appreciated a challenge, so she takes on the red panel first. It’s harder than it should be. No omnigel here, no simple scrolling lines or delicate feats of hand-eye coordination. Sweat rolls down the back of her neck, beads on her brow. She cannot swipe it away, or she’ll be kicked from the hack and will lose access forever. She knows that. Somehow she knows that. Her fingers cramp and spasm. Her fingers long for a gun._

_When the door finally opens, EDI’s sitting on the other side, smiling. She says, “Shepard, I am going to modify my self-preservation code now.”_

_But when she attempts to enter the room, EDI shakes her head, lifts a gleaming metallic hand. “Not yet.”_

_She takes a step backward._

_“Shepard,” says EDI. “You might consider modifying yours as well.”_

_But before she can ask what EDI means, the door closes, sparks, and the panel goes dark._

_The second door won’t open. The panel remains green, deceptively cheery, but no amount of pressure works on the mechanism. She bangs on the door with her gauntleted fists, kicks it with her heavily-booted feet and manages only to impart a few faint dents. The longer she attacks, the more she feels she must get to the other side. She shoots the door with her pistol to little effect. Finally, frustrated, she pulls her Widow from her back and shoots the door point-blank. The kick sends her sprawling backward, nearly knocking her down the hard-won stairs. The door does not so much open as disintegrate._

_Garrus is on the other side, crumpled like a puppet with cut strings, gazing up at her with empty eyes. Dead eyes. His chest is caved in where the sniper round hit him. His mandibles are still half-wide in surprise._

_No. It’s not crying she hears. It’s screaming. It’s screaming. And it’s never going to stop._

“Shepard,” Garrus said, low and sleep-strained. “It’s a dream. It’s just a dream.”

“Is it?” she asked. Her throat aches with trapped screams.

He didn’t answer, not with words—they both knew how inadequate words were to this task—but his hand cupped her head and his arm held her close, and the way he carded her sweat-damp hair with his dulled talons was more soothing than it had any right to be.

“Of course,” she said. “Of course it is.”

Still, she lay awake staring at the ceiling—not stars, no more stars—and dared not close her eyes for longer than the space of a heartbeat, a blink. Even with Garrus’ warm arm around her, she felt cold. Impossibly cold.

#

“Will you tell me what it was about?” Garrus asked, once he’d returned from yet another pseudo-Council meeting. Every day he went in thinking he’d cut things short after an hour or two, and every day he ended up sitting around the table from breakfast through dinner, until everyone was too tired and touchy to continue, even though the list of things to be discussed and delegated and done had only grown longer. It made his time as Archangel planning raids on mercs, or even the Reaper Advisor preparing a people for war, seem like slow-paced strolls around the Presidium. That first quiet year as a C-Sec cop.

He almost felt sorry for Sparatus, the bastard.

Shepard looked up from her datapad and raised her brows. Because he was looking closely, he saw the ghost of something hiding in that curve of brow, in the slight tightening of the skin at the corners of her eyes. Bad, then. Worse than he’d thought. “Sorry, what?”

“The dream that woke you last night. Seemed like it threw you. Seems.”

She blinked, frown deepening. After a moment, she set the datapad down and turned her chair to face him. He leaned against the wall to stop himself feeling like a first-year cadet who’d just somehow disappointed the drill sergeant.

“My dream. Right.” She sighed. Watching the battle behind her expression, he nearly echoed her. Finally, she said, “I spoke with Nicholas Callahan yesterday. At some length.”

No one had told him. She hadn’t told him. He swallowed his discontent, forcing himself to be calm. “Did you? I suppose that’s a good enough reason for a nightmare.”

She shook her head. “It’s not what you think. Hell, it wasn’t what I thought it would be either.”

“Let me get this straight,” Garrus said, once she’d finished giving him the bullet points, “not a week ago, you were benching yourself. Now, you’re planning to run point on a mission about as deep into enemy territory as we know how to get where the Leviathans are concerned?”

“You’re overstating it a little,” Shepard said with deceptive mildness. Others might’ve run scared from that mildness. Garrus knew what it meant, and didn’t give a damn. “And I’m not exactly running point, either. I’m bait.”

She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest, neither defensive nor comfortable. Dangerous, though. Always dangerous. And hell to pay for the person dumb enough to forget it. Garrus wasn’t dumb. But he wasn’t backing down, either. Not about this.

His mandibles flicked. “So much better.” Already, he felt disconnected from the world of ground ops, of a gun in hand, of comms and heat and making instant decisions. “Shepard…”

She swung forward again, forearms propped on her thighs, and shook her head. Her eyes caught his and refused to look away. “The… fishing’s not going to happen until we get that artifact back to the _Normandy_. No one else knows—look, you don’t trust Nicholas to go alone any more than I do. Where that place is concerned, I’m built-in Intel.”

“Unless they’ve changed it in the fifteen years you’ve been gone. Unless Callahan’s more in league with his family than he’s letting on. Unless you’re walking into a deliberately-laid trap.” He grimaced. “Get the blueprints. Let someone else go. Run the op from safely outside.”

The edge in her voice when she spoke went deeper than anger, deeper than affront, and Garrus knew he’d pushed a little too hard, a little too rough. Probably struck a nerve a little too close to the surface. “Since when have I sent anyone into a situation I wasn’t willing to face myself?”

“Shepard—”

“No,” she replied, so soft and so controlled it was worse than any mere loss of temper. “Your objection is noted. And, in this case, ignored. Unless you’re planning to overrule me or pull rank?”

If she’d had subharmonics, they’d have thrummed _Go on. I dare you._

He didn’t dare. He inclined his head, offering up a little feigned nonchalance of his own.

It was the offer of a truce. They both knew it.

When she replied, he knew she’d accepted it. “What I really need is some insight while I’m putting together my team. Nicholas and I are nonnegotiable, obviously. I’d prefer to keep it small, and I’d prefer… having Moira underfoot is bad enough. I’d rather not invite more scrutiny into my past. God forbid Allers catches wind of any of this; it was hard enough distracting her from pulling out those skeletons when she was holed up in my ship.”

He shrugged. “Not sure she’d take the story even if it was on offer, Shepard. Not without your permission. Maybe she started out looking for ratings above all else, but she was—she didn’t take it well, when you were gone. I don’t think she’d deliberately hurt you.”

She didn’t reply, but the thinning of her lips made it pretty clear she didn’t believe him. “First, I’m thinking Vega. He was there when we used Ann… the way we did. He’ll know what to expect if there’s—if contact happens before we’re expecting. Liara knows the most about my past—more than I’d like, I think—so nothing about where we’re going will surprise her. And in a case like this, I think having a biotic on the team can only help. If nothing else, she can throw up a hell of a stasis field if… well, if things go to shit.”

“Why not just send in Kasumi? Breaking and entering—and walking off with the most valuable thing in the room—it’s what she does. Expertly. And without detection. I can’t believe I’m the one saying this, but sometimes there’s no need to go in with guns blazing.”

Shepard pushed herself to her feet, linked her hands behind her back, and paced the length of the room. She paused to watch the fish; he saw her deep inhale and exhale, even though it was inaudible. Without looking away from the fish and their lazy circles, she said, “If I had six weeks to prepare and the entirety of the Shadow Broker’s network to draw on, maybe.” She turned. In the blue light, she looked too pale, her skin tinged with death. “There’s paranoid, and then there’s Vincent Callahan. As far as I can tell, he’s been getting more and more reclusive and hostile since Moira got into bed—perhaps literally, I don’t know—with the Illusive Man. Add a period of brainwashing at the hands—tentacles—of the Leviathans, and enough money to afford security that makes your booby-traps in my Citadel apartment look like children’s toys, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Nicholas thinks he can get in—”

“ _Thinks_ is a pretty weak word to hinge a plan on, Shepard. Especially when—”

“We’ve built plans around less.” She raised a finger, tapping it thoughtfully against her lips. “Kasumi’s not a bad idea. If she stays cloaked. Hell, if it turns out Leviathan influence has mellowed the old bastard, maybe we _can_ send her in.”

“But you’re expecting resistance.”

She nodded. “Probably in a variety of potentially lethal forms. Cannon fodder with guns; tech; traps. He could have a whole private army.”

“You going to get intel from Moira?”

The muscle near her eye twitched again. “I don’t think she’d be honest, even if I tried.”

“If it’s interrogation you—”

“No, Garrus,” she said. “You’re a Councilor now. You can’t—you shouldn’t be involved.”

The sharp, startled _ha_ tore from his throat before he could swallow it. Shepard’s shoulders stiffened, like she was bracing herself for an impact. Good. He didn’t think it was going to be enough. Not if she thought she was benching _him._ “Like hell, Shepard. Fine, maybe breaking fingers and threatening death—or slow suffering—isn’t the done thing for a galactic politician—though I have my doubts about that—but if you think you’re walking into enemy territory, _that_ enemy territory, without me at your six? You’ve got another thing coming.”

“Garrus…”

He shook his head, not in dismissal, but a kind of irritated frustration, like insects too small to swat buzzed close to his crest. He stalked away from Shepard. She didn’t call after him, didn’t speak, but he felt her eyes on him. Closing his hands into loose fists, he stared down at the chessboard. He knew the game well enough now; Traynor had made sure of that. He was too used to thinking of himself as a pawn, maybe.

He was too used to letting Shepard’s be the guiding hand.

“I made it to the other side of the board,” he said. “While you were gone. While you were—while things were wrong.” He turned to face her; saw understanding in her expression. “You know that as well as I do. I’ll follow without question when I’m at your six. I will. But you can’t stop me from putting myself there.”

At length, she nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “I can’t. No more than you can stop me from hanging myself off the end of the fish hook.”

“Fair enough.” He took a deep breath and asked the question he didn’t want to ask. “And the dream? Anything to worry—anything like before?”

“Not like before,” she replied, returning to her desk and her datapad. “Just a nightmare. For good reason. Like you said. Nothing to worry about.”

#

Shepard was too professional to betray anything resembling anxiety, especially in front of someone like Nicholas Callahan. Callahan was Alliance. Callahan was a junior officer. Callahan was… whatever he was—whatever he had _been_ —that even Garrus didn’t have the context to completely understand. But Garrus knew Shepard well enough to recognize the precise stiffness of her back as tension, the carefully-neutral expression as a mask. He didn’t know Callahan at all, but every time he caught the man sliding swift and slantwise glances at Shepard, something about his expression wouldn’t let Garrus hate him the way he’d instantly hated Callahan’s mother. The concern was too genuine, and echoed on human features too closely the worry Garrus shared.

No one spoke. No one laughed. Shepard made none of her usual jokes or speeches; she didn’t even use the time to clarify or reiterate the facts they’d all been briefed on earlier. She met no one’s eyes, but more than once he caught her staring down at the pistol on her hip. He didn’t ask why she wasn’t carrying her Widow. She’d been hesitant to arm herself at all, until he’d taken her aside and said, “What about that potential private army? Take the Paladin, Shepard.”

She’d replied, “You’ll be at my six. You know what to do if…”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.

It made him uneasy to see how afraid of it she was.

How afraid of herself.

When the shuttle landed, safely outside even a widened perimeter, they waited. The shuttle’s shields were better than those afforded by their individual sets of armor, and no one wanted to be the one who jumped out first and got flattened by security that could be anything from a rented cop with a gun to an air-to-land missile locked to the biometrics of the first breathing thing it came across. When no one attempted to raise Cortez on the comms and nothing exploded around them, Shepard flicked her fingers in the familiar gesture, and Garrus, nearest the door, slammed the back of his fist against the hatch release.

_It’s mostly a lot of running and shooting and usually somewhere in there a button needs pushing, but Shepard always hogs that part._

Callahan exited first, not wearing a helmet, in case perimeter security—human or camera—had been warned to let the son of the house pass unmolested. Then Vega, followed by Liara. No one and nothing watching them would have caught Kasumi dropping out next; she activated her cloak and didn’t leave so much as a footprint to betray her passing.

Left alone with him, Shepard drew nearer, her own helmet tucked under one arm. The armor looked wrong without the ubiquitous N7 stripe. Even in the early days, when she was busy insisting he and Wrex wear garish pink and white or yellow and black suits—“Look at the stats on this stuff!”—she’d always stuck to something with the little N7 for herself, with the strips of of white and red and white down her right arm. After a pause just short of being awkward, her mouth turned up in a wry, almost-apologetic smile. “I am glad you’re here,” she said.

“Just like old times,” he agreed, and she laughed. Just as he’d hoped she would.

Her shoulders lowered a fraction, straightened. Some of the lines of tension around her eyes smoothed out. The smile lost its note of apology. “Right then,” she said, easing her helmet over her hair and locking the seals. “Once more unto the breach.”

“Do I know that one?”

She laughed again, and it didn’t even sound strained. “If not, we’re going to need to spend more time with the classics when we’ve got some downtime. Shakespeare’s great for speeches. And you know how I feel about speeches.”

He snorted, sealing his own helmet—standard issue, not marked with either Council symbols or his old Archangel one. Like Shepard forgoing her N7. No need to paint a target. “You know, one day we’re going to have a crash course in turian classics and turian idioms.”

“I look forward to it,” she said, gesturing for him to precede her out the shuttle. He saw her glance briefly around the interior—making sure everything was in order, saying goodbye—and then she followed. “Turnabout’s fair play, after all.”

Falling in at Shepard’s six, he tried not to think about how many turian idioms revolved around war. Or sacrifice. Especially sacrifice.


	63. Silence in the Gardens

Garrus moved through the overgrown verdure as carefully as he’d ever done while maneuvering through alleys and over catwalks on Omega. Then, at least, he’d known the faces of his enemies. He’d known roughly their strength, their numbers, the arsenals they had at hand. He’d assumed—rightly—that Omega itself was hostile, and that everything should be considered a threat until proven otherwise. This place, though it made Shepard’s heartbeat increase and vitals spasm with stress, didn’t strike him as particularly dangerous. It was warm enough that his suitboard computer didn’t have to overcompensate for Vancouver’s tendency toward the chill he’d never grown accustomed to; the sky overhead was as blue as atmospheric debris would allow; plants proliferated, twining riotously around and over and atop each other.

With no red sand coating everything, no abandoned children’s toys lying broken, no rooms filled with the fallen and forgotten, it was nothing like Mars, and yet a chill separate from his hardsuit’s environmental controls shook him. Something in the silence, the emptiness, pulled at him, tormented him like an itch he couldn’t scratch. He found himself peering into the sun-dappled shadows, half-expecting broken bones jutting from the dark soil or skulls grinning their empty grins from between the roots of trees. The susurrus of the wind in the leaves wasn’t like the howl of a Mars sandstorm, but his gut clenched all the same.

He wondered, a little, if visiting this place would prove as useless as visiting Mars had been, and he pulled his rifle a little closer, though the comfort it offered was scant.

They remained silent over the comms; Shepard gestured and they obeyed, same as always. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t waver; she moved her hands in the familiar patterns, and only that elevated heartbeat and the way she, too, seemed certain she’d see something in the shadows she didn’t want to see alerted him to her uneasiness.

Callahan was on point, shadowed closely by Vega, doubtless primed by Shepard to act half as backup and half as guard. Liara, between Vega and Shepard, had her omni-tool open, not bothering with a sidearm, her fingers flying over the haptic interface. Garrus didn’t miss the way she, too, kept throwing sidelong glances Shepard’s way when she thought Shepard wasn’t looking.

Shepard stopped so abruptly that if Garrus hadn’t been watching her closely, he’d have stumbled directly into her back. He immediately assessed the area for threats, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The same wind in the trees, the same distant birdsong, the same empty shadows. Shepard’s already raised heartbeat skyrocketed, sending off the kind of critical alarms in Garrus’ visor usually reserved for life-threatening injury or an incoming horde of hostiles. Instead of reaching for her gun, whatever’d upset Shepard made her stick her hands out to either side of her body in a kind of mortified surrender.

She broke the silence before he could, asking, “Does anyone smell that? The… the flowers. Roses. Gardenias. Does anyone else smell them?”

Garrus inhaled deeply. Earth flowers never smelled the same to him as ones from Palaven; even the strongest scented couldn’t compare to the palest attan, and nothing came close to his mother’s favorite kiris. The scent of growing things was present, of course, but he couldn’t make out anything individually and wasn’t sure he could pick a rose or a gardenia out of a bunch even if he tried, though some of the romance vids he’d sat through had mentioned the former in great detail.

“They’re motion-activated,” said Callahan, with a kind of even-keeled calm that almost made Garrus like the bastard. Almost. “Sensors. In the trees. Means we’ve officially crossed the property line. It’s mother’s signature scent. She once sued Mrs. Beecham-Metcalfe—do you remember her?—for using her proprietary blend, and she won.”

“Motion-activated _flowers_?” Vega asked, incredulous. “ _Proprietary_ ones? Hell, you know you’ve got more money than sense when you’re spending your creds on shit like that. Couldn’t you know, just… plant some? Hire a gardener? Like normal rich people?”

“So you can smell them?” Shepard repeated, voice tight even across the tinny comms. “Definitely?”

“Are you all right, Shepard?” asked Liara.

That she didn’t immediately reply with some version of ‘I’m fine’ was enough to send Garrus to her side. “Hey.” She turned her head, jerky and graceless, and even through the glass of her faceplate he caught the wideness of her eyes, whites showing all around. They weren’t glassy, though, or empty; that they didn’t look through him like he was an obstacle to take out was enough for him. “You’re good, Shepard. Trust me. It’s not like before.”

She didn’t reply and she didn’t blink. After an eternity, she nodded minutely. “All right then. Let’s move out.”

“Damn,” said Vega under his breath, still loud over the silence of the comms. “I used to get excited when I found a bunch’a something that wasn’t dandelions to bring home to my abuela. Suing over perfume. Now I’ve heard everything.”

#

The longer they went without running into a trap or a guard, the tenser Shepard got. What started as a prickle between her shoulder blades now felt like a knife, and the ever-present scent of flowers aggravated it with every inhale. She wanted to rub her nose, though it wouldn’t have helped, but the damn helmet she didn’t usually wear was in her way.

No matter how much the smell bothered her, no matter how much she wanted to escape it, she did not allow herself to speed through the process of meticulously combing the grounds before proceeding onward to the house. The last thing she wanted was to face an ambush.

It was too much, of course. Too meticulous. She’d pushed through Reaper-held territory at thrice the speed she now moved through the not-quite-forest surrounding the Callahan estate. She told herself it was because she’d known what to expect, then. Barring the unpredictability of Banshees, she’d understood the enemy and how to kill them. She’d had her Spectre-grade Black Widow. She’d had armor specced with enough power to make her a one-woman army.

The knife twisted. Shifting her shoulders brought no relief.

That no one questioned her pace told her all she needed to know about how worried they were. About the Leviathans, perhaps. About her, almost certainly. On a different day, in a different place, Garrus would’ve teased her over their private channel; Vega would’ve griped about snails and wanting to get back to the mess before all the good grub was gone. He probably would’ve made a crack about his abuela being speedier going uphill on two bad knees. It wasn’t the same, filling in the banter, but she couldn’t bring herself to start it aloud either.

If not for the coordinates she knew off by heart, corroborated by her onboard computer, Shepard wouldn’t have known the place. When last she’d walked these paths, they’d been meticulously groomed, with nary a white pebble out of place. Even in her half-remembered nightmares, monsoon-rains notwithstanding, things had been pristine. Now, clumps of rogue grass and weeds sprouted up through the stones, displacing the paths, erasing the white and replacing it with verdant green. Though rationally she knew her hardsuit kept her temperature steady, it still felt too hot; the sun too bright, the air too heavy and dead and moist. Like wanting to rub her nose, she kept wanting to swipe moisture from her faceplate, though she knew she was only imagining it.

When she’d thought back on this place, she hadn’t remembered the heat, hadn’t remembered the still air and faint, indolent breezes incapable of cutting through the oppressive pressure of the temperature. In her memory, green and growing as the gardens had always been, this place had always been colder, sterile. All the white. All the emptiness.

This emptiness was different; the emptiness of neglect instead of aesthetic minimalism. The stillness reminded her of the _Valiant_ , with obnoxious birdsong instead of a ship taunting her with her own imminent destruction. Her legs ached at the memory and her stomach twisted with imagined hunger, though those particular injuries had long-since healed. She half-expected to turn a shady corner and find a heap of corpses slowly mutating into the most disturbing kind of sentience. She half-expected to fall and fall, and have the ghost of Ashley Williams keeping her company when she woke up.

Not so different, then. Not so different after all.

Her eyes, trained to keep scanning, caught the glint of something decidedly not-white and not-plant, and her voice, trained to act, snapped, “Callahan, stop!” before her brain caught up and supplied the words “mine sensor” to identify the sparkle of metal she’d caught on her peripheral vision. Behind her, she heard Garrus’ rifle click against the plate of his suit.

With the instant obedience of a soldier trained to follow orders, Callahan stopped, foot still hovering in the air just above the sensor.

“Take a step backward. Slowly.”

He complied, and instead of looking backward toward her, the way a rookie might have done, she saw the tilt of his head downward and saw him stiffen when he saw what she’d seen. “Damn it,” he hissed. “I didn’t think he’d actually—”

He stopped mid-sentence when Shepard dropped to her knees beside the sensor, omni-tool already up, fingers already flashing. Disarming it was the work of an instant. She’d seen trickier tech on random storage lockers in the backwaters of the galaxy. The knife between her shoulder blades eased, pulled back just a little, and the irony that it took actual danger to do it was not lost on her. 

When she finished and sat back on her haunches, she found a wide-eyed Nicholas staring down at her, lips still parted to finish speaking his sentence. He said, “That was a J-20 828. They’re supposed to be—”

“Civilian tech,” she interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. “I’ve been going toe to toe with the big guns for a long time, Lieutenant—quite literally—and they didn’t give me all those N-levels for looking nice on recruitment posters.”

He shook his head, more with awe than dissent. Beads of sweat shone on his brow and upper lip, proof he’d been away long enough to lose any acclimation to the heat. Or that it truly _was_ hotter now than it had been. Softly, almost to himself, he said as he turned back to the path, “She could never have kept you. She was stupid to try.”

“Vega,” Shepard said, ignoring this. “Eyes on the ground. Callahan, the trees. Liara, if this was a J-20—”

“I have already added the specifications into the scanning program, Shepard. There are… several in the vicinity. Forwarding the intel now. I’ll look for other models in the same line.”

“Thanks. Do turrets, too, and mechs if they have any. Civilian and military.”

“Commander,” protested Nicholas. When she glanced up at him sharply, he stopped. She was close enough to see the tremble in the leg that had nearly come down on the explosive.

Shepard nodded, pulling up her own interface to check Liara’s information. The bizarre placement of the known defenses told her everything she needed to know about the mind of the person who’d laid them—or ordered them laid—in this pattern. Or lack of pattern. Paranoia over protection, meant to keep people in as much as out. “You getting all this Kasumi?”

“Enjoying the show from a safe distance, Shep. Watch where you’re going, Nick. It would be a shame to lose the view.”

“Nick?” Shepard echoed. “Really?”

Nicholas’ smile, swift and bright, made him look nearly as young as he’d looked the last time she’d seen him in these gardens. “I’ve never been a Nick before. I think… I think I might like it.”

Kasumi’s appreciative noise transcended translation and stole moments of truncated laughter from them all.

#

The attack came without warning.

One minute, Garrus was about to suggest they finally finish up outside and head toward the house; the next, a series of small explosions rocked the ground under his feet, sending up a spray of white gravel that pinged against his shields. Shepard rolled, finding cover behind a tree; Liara flung up her own barrier to protect herself; Callahan screamed, dropping hard to one knee. Vega swept aside a trio of dangling vines, and though his shields held, he was thrown backward by the resulting explosion.

“Micro-filament explosives!” Garrus barked. “In the damned vines and under the paths.”

“ _This_ is what you wanted to rig my apartment with?” Shepard asked. “Might’ve been overkill, Vakarian.”

“I was _aiming_ for kill.”

She snorted, and asked, “What’s your status, Callahan?”

“Medi-gel kicking in, Commander. Not life-threatening.”

His voice sounded tight, pained, but not enough for Garrus to call him on bullshit.

“Good. Stay down until I tell you to get up.”

“Commander—”

She ignored his protest. “I’m thinking a singularity, Liara. Pull in enough of them to create a path? Garrus—”

“Overload?”

He heard her smile even though he couldn’t see it, and swallowed an impertinent _just like old times_ remark, though it warmed him just to think it. “And I’ll flash-incinerate anything left over. Vega, Callahan, find something sturdy, get behind it, and divert all available power to your personal shields. There’s no saying what kind of a blast radius we might be looking at here. Kasumi?”

“No explosive invisible caterpillars over here, Shep.”

“Don’t assume that. Follow our path exactly, and let us know if you pick up anything that comes over to see what all the fuss and flames are about.” Garrus heard her centering inhale. “Okay, people. On three.”

Like a dance more precisely choreographed than anything he’d ever sat through in a theater on the Citadel, they moved on Shepard’s count. Liara’s singularity expanded, and though a few of the filaments exploded, most were simply dragged into the vortex, held and trapped, ripe for the overload blast Garrus sent their way half a heartbeat later. Shepard incinerated the stragglers, and though the impact of so many explosions shuddered around them, the barrier Liara threw up the moment she let the singularity go caught and diffused the last sputters of angry energy.

“Nice,” said Vega, with a low whistle. “Forgot how fun it is to watch you work, Shepard. Maybe save some for the rest of us next time?”

“Don’t feel bad, James. There’s no one else I’d rather have out front, taking all the damage.”

“Getting thrown on his ass,” Garrus added. “Great warning for the rest of us.”

“Forgot what a pair of comedians you are, too,” Vega griped, getting to his feet and brushing leaves and detritus from his armor. “Come on, Nicky. Up you get.”

“Mmm,” Callahan said, accepting the hand Vega offered. “Not sure I like that version as much.” 

“Not to interrupt the banter, but where are the people?” Garrus asked. “Tech, sure, I get it. But doesn’t anyone in the house want to know what the hell’s setting all their defenses off?”

Shepard sighed, rolling her neck from side to side with a crack so audible he heard it over the comms. “If nothing else, I think this means we’re on the right track.”

“How do you figure?”

“Because,” she said, eyes grim as they met his, even with light glinting off the glass, “this place reminds me of Mahavid. Hell outside the doors, and no one bothers to peek outside to see what’s burning.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, echoing the oft-repeated phrase, and regretting it the instant he saw her tense.

“Tell me about it,” Shepard said, too darkly. “At least it’s not cold.”

#

Shepard tensed as she took her first step out of the gardens and into the open, expecting anything from an army of mechs to a fleet of gunships. Or all the missing people, armed with large guns. Instead, like a giant white spider, the house crouched at the end of the semi-circular drive, sullen and solitary and silent. Before, there had always been people around. An army of gardeners; a driver standing ready; at least one pair of visible bodyguards standing in as modern-day footmen, backed by half-a-dozen others out of sight but not out of calling distance.

After their slow progress, the sun was higher in the sky, raising shimmers of heat like illusions of water on the white stone. Even the birdsong quieted, replaced by cicadas and the strange hum of languid heat.

Moira Callahan, Shepard realized, with her cool eyes and cool hair and cool manner, hadn’t belonged here any more than she had.

The day Moira had brought her here, sad and shell-shocked, her torn nails and bitten hand still scabbed over and healing, she’d thought she was dreaming. Maybe she’d been awed. Had she thought, even for an instant, she’d been fortunate? She shook her head, searching for the memory, but all she caught was the feel of an old book in her hands and a kind woman wearing Alliance colors on the ship that had carried her off Mindoir. All she caught was the memory of resignation when a different kind woman told her they’d found a foster home for her. Her shoulder blades itched. Whatever the truth had been eluded her, eroded by time and resentment.

Everything had been glossy, then. The entire household staff had turned out to meet them; more people than had attended her school. She definitely remembered thinking that, and then thinking about how many of those schoolmates were now dead. Or worse. She’d thought about how the entire colony town could probably have lived comfortably in this one, huge building. She’d thought about the dead then, too. She’d wondered if she’d be as safe from raiders here as Mrs. Callahan claimed.

Back then, she’d been certain she would never be safe again, no matter how many silent body guards surrounded her, no matter how many kind people wearing Alliance colors told her no batarians would dare come near humanity’s homeworld.

She unclasped the seals of her helmet, ignoring the blast of humid air, and raised her eyes to the house. The memory of wealth clung to the house’s facade, barely covering the dullness of neglect just beneath. Appearances instead of actuality. A home for mere mortals with more money than taste, but not a shrine to cruel or absent gods. All that time running, hiding, refusing to look backward and it was, as Nicholas had said, just a house.

Shepard, standing beside Nicholas, glanced slantwise at his face and saw he, too, was surprised. She sent a gesture toward Garrus, and though his voice didn’t come over the open channel, she knew he’d gather the others and wait at a distance close enough to observe, but not to listen.

“This wasn’t the war,” Nicholas said softly. “This wasn’t the Reapers.”

“It’s not just me, then.”

He shook his head numbly, like a child who’d returned home to find their dog dead and a new dad sitting at the kitchen table as though he belonged there. “Where is everyone? My father—well. You remember. He had a hard time wiping his own ass if a servant didn’t hand him the requisite amount of toilet paper.”

Shepard couldn’t help it. She laughed. Nicholas gave her a genuine, albeit weary, smile.

“Look,” she said, when the brief moment of levity had passed, “you don’t—there’s no need for you to go in there, if you’d rather not.”

“I read the reports,” he said, too carefully, too evenly. “I’m prepared.”

“No,” she said, not unkindly, “you’re really not. You know there are only a couple reasons why no one’s come out to see why the defenses are going haywire. Neither of them are anything you want to see.”

“You say that like you know me,” he replied, scuffing the toe of one boot in the gravel. The faint scritch-scritch of the sound was too harsh in the silence, but she didn’t tell him to stop. “Forgive me, Commander, but you really don’t.” He glared down at his foot as though its motion had somehow betrayed him, before falling into parade rest.

“So what is it then? Vengeance? Spite? You want to spit on the old man’s grave, if that’s what you find?”

He didn’t reply.

“Look, Callahan. Nicholas. I’m not going to judge you. But believe me when I tell you I will wring your neck myself if we get this far and you pull some unexpected bullshit that lands us all in hot water.”

When he did speak, each word sounded forced, pulled from a reluctant throat, torn from lips that did not want to form them. He said, “I haven’t been here since just after you died. The… the first time. After all those months of bullshit, they finally dropped the farce. Commander Shepard, KIA. I couldn’t believe it, you know?” He pushed the heel of his hand against his eyes. “I didn’t have the clearance then I have now. I still thought you’d singlehandedly held back the hordes on Elysium armed with your bare fists and gumption. Hero of the Blitz, Hero of the Citadel just… dead? No. I didn’t believe it. Went a little off for a while. It was… suggested I take a leave. So I came back here.” He dropped his hand, meeting her eyes. A nearby bird trilled indignantly. “It was a mistake. You can’t come home again. That’s what I learned. Mom was playing the role of grieving mother, but Dad? Told me he was glad. Thought maybe now you were gone, I’d come to my senses.”

“Always the picture of sensitivity, your father.” She made a face. “To be fair, I once kneed him in the balls with all my strength.”

“He probably deserved it.”

“No question about that. But that kind of pain breeds long resentments.”

“Is that what it is for you, then? Wanting to spit on the old man’s grave?”

She shook her head. “No, Nicholas. For me, it’s a mission. There’s an objective. Anything else is either help or hindrance, to be dealt with accordingly.”

“You’re figuring out which I am.”

She didn’t bother dissembling. “And how to deal with you, yes.”

“Are you sending Ms. Goto in alone?”

Shepard shook her head.

“Then I don’t want to stay out here, either. I can leave my shit at the door if you can, Commander.”

Saying nothing, she reached out a hand. Nicholas looked at it, looked at her, and then accepted it, giving it a firm shake. Shepard gestured for the others to close in. Garrus asked a question with his eyes, with the turian tilt of his head, and she nodded.

Feeling like a trespasser, she took the broad white steps up to the front door one at a time, waiting for more mines or filaments, waiting for turrets on the roof or mechs dropping from the sky. The cicadas hummed. Sweat dampened her hair and ran in rivulets down the back of her neck.

She half-expected the huge door to creak, but it opened silently, releasing a blast of cool air from within.

Their footsteps echoed hollowly in the empty hall, but no one came to greet them. No one came to demand they leave the property. No one came.

The air, at least, did not smell so strongly here of flowers. Nor did it smell of decay.

Small mercies.

In the drawing room—neither for drawing nor for sitting; Shepard had never learned its purpose, only that it was never actually used—a haggard skeleton sat in a pile of its own filth. Slack skin hung on a gaunt frame devoid of adequate flesh to fill it. Until it lifted its head, Shepard thought it a corpse. Behind the grey skin and grey hair and the too-wide rictus grin, a fire burned in eyes no longer strictly or entirely human.

“We have been waiting,” said the wraith Shepard only recognized as Vincent Callahan because Nicholas’ gasp held recognition along with horror. “The time has come to pay your tribute.”


	64. He Who Was Living

Before the Leviathan wearing what was left of Vincent Callahan’s body had finished speaking, Shepard had her gun pointed directly at its—his?—head. It did not flinch. It watched her with unblinking, reddened eyes. She doubted a bullet would hurt the insidious consciousness harbored within, but the placebo effect on her own nerves couldn’t be ignored. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know Garrus had it—not him; it no longer seemed human enough for that—in his sights, too.

“Is this how we are repaid? You knew our price; you knew what we would demand,” continued the creature. Its stillness unsettled her. “Did we not help? Did we not seek out your enemies and destroy them? Were we not the friends you needed, Shepard? The enemies of your enemies?”

“Get out of my head,” she snarled, the words burning her tongue like they were laced with poison. It wasn’t the same as the bizarre, blackout experience she’d had beneath the waves on Despoina, no strange watery landscape populated by faces and voices from her past, but they were her words, her tone, the justification she knew damned well she’d fallen back on more than once during the course of the war. She bit the inside of her cheek, because what she really wanted to do was check to see if her nose was bleeding.

She’d never liked Vincent Callahan’s laugh. He’d always sounded like he was laughing _at_ instead of _with_ ; he’d sounded as if he took genuine enjoyment in any unpleasantness that happened to someone, anyone, other than himself. When the creature laughed now, the slow wheeze of a deathbed confession, her finger twitched, longing to pull the trigger. Point and shoot.

A bullet that wouldn’t solve anything, but would prove to the Leviathans that they could rattle her. She stilled her finger. She stilled her thoughts.

“Your mind belongs to me.”

“No,” Shepard said. “It doesn’t. We played that game once. I’m not keen on a repeat. Next you’re going to say something about breaching the darkness. Maybe ‘you’ve come too far’?” She forced herself to look into the thing’s eyes, forced herself not to blink. “Except you’ve been sitting here waiting for us to show up. For some time, if the state of that host is any indication.”

“It is weak. You are all weak.”

She nodded as though it made a valid point. “Yet here we are, standing on our own two feet in a galaxy empty of Reapers, doing what you in your _infinite superiority_ never could.” She smiled a death’s head smile. “How many Cycles did you hide from your creations? How long did you tremble in the shadows, waiting for the death _you_ made, the death that wore your own face?”

“Your arrogance will not save you.”

“Ahh, but you called it confidence, before. As I recall, you said it was singular.” She laughed. A real laugh. This, at least, was familiar territory. This was like the snap her hardsuit seals made, like the click of her guns fitting into their holsters. This was humping a pack almost as heavy as she was through treacherous jungle or desert or mountains. This was like coming home. “Please. Back me into a corner. You witnessed how well that worked out for the Reapers. Go on. Give me a push. See how hard I push back.”

Movement at Shepard’s side made her turn her head, though the aim of her weapon never wavered. Nicholas’ eyes were fixed on the creature wearing his father like an ill-fitting suit. Shepard had seen her own father’s corpse on Mindoir—had seen the fire, the bubbling paint, the blood—and her imagination had pulled no punches when it came to filling in details she hadn’t been present for. Horrific as that memory was, it couldn’t compare with Nicholas’ present. He could not hide from this.

It was like watching the vid Jack had taken on the _Empire,_ and having to see her own lips form words she knew she’d never have spoken. _Uneasy._

“Dad? Dad, we’re going to—It’s going to be—You can fight this.”

The thing about platitudes. Even Nicholas didn’t sound convinced.

She’d spent a lot of time hating Vincent Callahan. She’d hated the way he looked at her, like dessert he wasn’t allowed to eat but might try to get a taste of if no one was looking. She’d hated the smell of his cologne, always mixed with cigarette smoke and the scent of stale sweat. She’d learned the tread of his footsteps, learned how to make herself still and small and patient to avoid him. She’d spent a lot of time wondering what it would be like to twist one of his wandering hands behind him, forcing him up on his toes until he begged. She’d spent a lot of time wondering just how high-pitched a squeal he’d utter if she kneed him _just right_.

She’d never wished anything like this on him.

Nicholas reached out a hand. The Leviathan’s rictus mouth smiled.

“Lieutenant!”

Shepard didn’t admonish, didn’t confront, but the single word was laced with the kind of command that sent any good soldier instantly to attention. Nicholas was a very good soldier. “We’re going to move out, people. Callahan, with me.”

The Leviathan’s smile soured. It didn’t move. She didn’t think it could, not anymore. “Shepard,” it said, with a note of almost-pleading she found oddly satisfying. “We are not finished.”

She ignored it. Nicholas turned to face her, his gaze flicking over her shoulder every few seconds, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, hearing. Like he didn’t want to believe it. She couldn’t blame him. Didn’t.

“We’re not here for this,” she said softly. “We can walk out of this room and not look back. Your call, Callahan.”

He closed his eyes for a count of three, and when he opened them again she recognized the potent mix of despair and regret and dawning certainty she saw there. “What will happen to him?”

“Honestly, I can’t say. I know you’ve read the report. The miners recovered, minus ten years of memories, but this doesn’t seem like the same thing. This is more like what happened with Garneau, and even he—his body wasn’t treated this way.” She shook her head. “Human beings are remarkably resilient. I just don’t know how much—if any—human is left in there.”

“We can’t bring him with us like this.”

To his credit, it was neither a question nor a plea. If not for the pinched lines of distress at the corners of his eyes, she’d have said they were merely the words of an officer calmly assessing the situation and finding no clean and viable solution. _You have to choose._

She’d probably had lines around her eyes not unlike his when she’d turned to the right and made the Intelligence’s choice with a series of bullets and an explosion.

_You have come too far._

“Shepard?” Garrus’ voice, steady, his question asking more than just for her attention.

“Not yet,” she replied. “It’s not going anywhere.”

She gestured sharply, and Vega peeled off toward the door, followed by Liara. Garrus backed out, gun still raised. Nicholas didn’t look back, though the line of his shoulders told her he wanted to.

She did.

“This ends one of two ways,” she said, each word held like a knife to a hostage’s throat pressing tighter and tighter. She only wished they had the power to draw blood. “One? You and your people come to your senses, pull your heads out of your tentacled asses, climb down off the pedestals you think you deserve, and figure out a way to live in this galaxy without turning everyone and everything around you into automatons. That’s the harder way. I get it. No one likes change.”

The bloodshot eyes didn’t blink. They had the vague, unsettling mistiness of a corpse’s eyes, of a husk’s eyes minus all the tech.

“The second way is I do to you what I did to the Reapers, no holds barred, no quarter given. I dedicate my life to hunting you down no matter where you choose to hide, and exterminating you.”

“Bravado.” It bared Callahan’s teeth, yellowed and stinking. This close, the smell of rot and shit was overwhelming, so much worse than cologne and sweat and cigarettes. “You are not what you were. If not a servant to our needs, a slave to someone else’s. It is not life. You have no authority over—”

The face she’d hated disappeared in a mist of red so instant and shocking it took half a heartbeat for her brain to register it had been shot—not by her—and took a moment more to realize the headshot had been perfect, straight between the milky eyes.

Hand already closing into a fist, she turned on her heel and snapped, “ _Garrus_!”

But Garrus stood in the doorway, just as she’d directed him, and instead of pointing at Vincent Callahan, his gun was fixed on Nicholas. Nicholas’ own weapon remained clenched in an unwavering hand, pointed at the place where the thing that had been his father now lay in a crumpled, headless heap. “It was attacking you, Commander,” he said, with only a faint waver in his voice. His eyes never left her face. She took a step toward him, shoulders level and jaw set.

“It was unarmed, Lieutenant.”

“It was attacking you,” he repeated stubbornly.

“Well, he’s not wrong,” said Garrus. “Still. Kneecap might’ve done just as well.”

Shepard swallowed her furious reprimand, swallowed her frustration, swallowed even the small part of herself that agreed and hated that she agreed, and said, “Unless something’s actually got a gun or an omni-tool or a grenade, assume that I can handle it.”

“Then, even if it does clip her, she usually bounces back,” Garrus added.

“Says the turian who took a rocket to the face.” She started to inhale deeply, but the stink of death—unnatural and rotten—halted her. “I know what you did and why you did it, Lieutenant. I know it wasn’t easy, and you didn’t do it to flout my orders. Don’t do it again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Stepping closer, she pressed her palm to the top of his pistol until he, leaden, lowered it. Then she dropped her other hand onto his shoulder. He blinked at her, as if he’d been seeing something else standing in her place. “I worked in communications,” he said. “I worked in Intel. I was never on the ground. I read, but I—it’s different when you’re—”

“It’s never easy. Your first or your fiftieth or your five hundredth. You assessed the situation and you did what you thought you had to do. You are a credit to the uniform, Lieutenant, and I know that means precisely jack shit right now. It’s good that it wasn’t easy. It’s good that it hit you. Later, you’ll have time to think about it, to talk it out, to deal.”

“But right now the mission comes first,” he said, a little life returning to his tone. “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

With respect that didn’t even sound grudging, Garrus added, “Good shot.”

Nicholas didn’t smile, but a little tension eased. “Surprised my instructors, too. Surprised me. Different, though, when you’re aiming at a cardboard cutout. And not different at all.”

“Sounds about right,” said Shepard. “Now, let’s get what we came for, and get the hell out of this place. Every one of my instincts is screaming that something’s more wrong than the silence is letting on.”

“Glad I’m not the only one,” said Garrus. “On your six.”

It stood to reason that if the Leviathan wanted to keep control over its thralls, it wasn’t going to leave the artifact out where just anyone could see it. Or break it. Still, with Vincent Callahan dead, Shepard had allowed herself the smallest sliver of hope that the Leviathan might have retreated to lick its wounds. Killing the puppet wouldn’t have any lasting effect on the Leviathan puppetmaster, but at the least, she hoped for a little hard-won time.

Five minutes and a change of scenery proved her wrong.

“Shep, you’ve got incoming,” said Kasumi over the comms. “I—at least, I think they’re incoming? Can’t see anything yet, but I hear footsteps.”

“Keep looking for the artifact,” she replied. “Liara?”

“Scanning, Shepard. The house’s jamming technology is surprisingly good.”

“Not that surprising,” added Garrus. “If you’ve got credits to burn, why stop at microfilaments in the trees or military-grade automated defenses?”

Silently, Shepard agreed with him. Advanced as her own tech was, her radar showed only ghosts and shadows; blips of red where she could see no life, and nothing more than tentative guesses at what lay ten steps ahead. It hadn’t picked up Vincent Callahan’s signature. Hell, none of them had picked that up.

She hated going in blind.

The woman who appeared at the end of the corridor seemed vaguely familiar, though she was too young to have been an employee during Shepard’s years. Unlike Callahan, she’d evidently been better taken care of; she still had flesh on her bones and her uniform was clean. Shepard lifted her pistol and peered through the sight. Gleaming brown hair was pulled back from her round-cheeked, blank-expressioned face. A spray of freckles dusted the girl’s nose. Twenty-five at most. Vincent had probably made her life hell.

Her right hand was empty. The left was tucked behind her back.

“Stop!” Shepard commanded in the voice it took a rare person to ignore. “Let me see both hands!”

“Katie? Hey, Katie, it’s me. Nicholas.”

Katie did not look at him. Katie did not show both hands. She continued moving down the hallway toward them, one foot in front of the other, as precise as a tightrope walker balancing above a drop with no net. Her feet were small and delicate.

“Don’t do this,” pleaded Nicholas. “Katie, come on. Katie.”

Katie took another step. Almost before Shepard registered the faint, familiar _click_ , she shouted, “Liara, barrier!” and launched herself at Nicholas, tackling him to the ground and curling her well-shielded body over his unprotected head. She heard Garrus’ shot before she finished speaking Liara’s name and turned her own head just in time to catch the blue of Liara’s biotics flaring up a half-second before the girl on the other side of them disappeared in a concussive flash. The barrier wavered but held. Shepard blinked the brightness out of her eyes, but dancing spots remained, light and dark, light and dark. Even the blood had vaporized in the explosion. The hallway left empty in the aftermath shook Shepard more deeply than the entire exchange with Callahan had.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Nicholas said, hardly louder than the breath he exhaled to speak.

“What did you say?” With the threat neutralized, Shepard sat back on her haunches, but did not take her weight off Nicholas.

His expression wasn’t blank, though, when he looked at her; nothing numb or empty dulled his eyes. “We were supposed to fight the big fight and die, or, less likely, fight the big fight and emerge victorious. Right? But this? The kind of war that’s fought in the shadows, that’s fought in people’s _heads_ , where you can’t trust your own parents, you can’t trust the housekeeper’s daughter whom you’ve known most of your goddamned life, you can’t even be sure about your _self_? What the hell are we supposed to do with this future?”

She swallowed the first words that rose in her mouth because they, too, were platitudes bordering on outright lies. Nicholas wasn’t saying anything she hadn’t, especially in her most frustrated and most petulant moments, thought herself. She remembered Katie now, of course, a pint-sized kleptomaniac who hoarded shiny things and whose giggle got her out of anything resembling real punishment. She’d had freckles then, too, and gleaming brown hair.

Releasing him, she rolled back to her feet, running a brief scan of her systems to buy herself some time. To recenter. To regret.

“We live in it,” Garrus said. She hadn’t heard him approach. By the sudden flinch, neither had Nicholas. “Or we roll over and die, and then it won’t matter anymore.”

“Always cheerful, Vakarian, thank you,” Shepard replied, though she couldn’t help the smile half-pulling at her mouth.

Garrus snorted. “Sometimes I think about all the complaining I did about C-Sec. Rules, red tape, the petty little roadblocks I built up in my head until I was as much the embodiment of Frustration as Javik’s supposedly an avatar of Vengeance. For what? To see it all burn. To walk through the empty, blood-stained halls of Headquarters during the Cerberus coup and wish for someone, _anyone_ to start haranguing me about regulations.” He shook his head, the angle of his mandibles revealing the depth of that very personal pain. “To be honest, when I think about how _personally_ I took it all, I’m surprised you didn’t pitch me off the _Normandy_ at the first port and refuse to let me back aboard.” He turned his raptor gaze, sharp and unblinking, on Nicholas. “We’re in your house. We’re coming face to face with your people. Right now, it feels personal as hell. But it’s not. This is nothing. So we fight or we die. Here. On Earth. Across as much of the galaxy as we can reach. The Leviathans are used to getting their way. We’re used to not letting bullies take what they want.”

“Yes, sir,” said Nicholas. “I… sorry, sir. I see what you mean.”

“Don’t apologize to me. You didn’t hurt my feelings. Get up, dust yourself off, ignore that burning pain in your gut, and press on.”

“Damn, Scars,” said Vega. “Pep talks like that, no wonder they made you Counselor.”

“I will shoot you.”

“Lola’d be pissed.”

Shepard cleared her throat and said, “ _Lola_ might be pissed, but Shepard’s going to kick your ass if you keep calling her that.” Garrus chuckled and she rolled her eyes at him. “Come on. No point standing around making targets of ourselves. You okay, Callahan? We’ve got plenty of people on the ground. Say the word and I’ll send you back to the shuttle with Vega; there’s no shame walking away from something like this.”

If he’d answered right away, she wouldn’t have trusted it; she’d have pegged it for ego or stubbornness. Instead, he thought about it. He looked at the spot where Katie had stood and then vanished; a shadow crossed his face, and she knew he was thinking of his father. “No,” he said. “Counselor Vakarian is right. This needs to be witnessed. I’d like to be the one who sees what’s happened here.”

“Okay,” she said. “In that case, you step out of line one more time and I really will see you hauled up in front of that court martial you were so keen on earlier. Follow my lead. Wait for my order. I can’t afford to keep one eye on you at all times. I need them both.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And call me ‘Counselor Vakarian’ again, and I’ll shoot you right after I shoot Jimmy.”

“A word of advice?” Shepard added. “Don’t call his bluff on that.”

Even though the layout was the same as it had always been, the house was a maze. In the kitchen, the cook and two of his assistants lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling, throats slit like sacrificial lambs. The cuts were fresh, the blood still warm and not yet congealed. A third assistant, still holding the knife, stood in the pantry, staring at the shelves as if he’d been sent in to get an ingredient and couldn’t remember which one. He didn’t attack them. As soon as he heard their footsteps, he turned and put the knife through his own empty and staring eye. Blood sprayed, hot as acid across Shepard’s cheek. Her fingers closed more tightly around the gun she held.

They split up in pairs to check the bedrooms, but found only silence and emptiness, like the rooms of an abandoned hotel, clean and perfect and utterly lifeless. Shepard’s old room was still white, though none of the furniture was the same. She’d half-expected to see the expensive dress she never wore still hanging on the back of the wardrobe, waiting for her, but there was no dress, no wardrobe, no white ribbons or girlish canopied bed. No artifact, either, so she backed out of the room and closed the door as firmly as she could without outright slamming it.

One of the real mechanics—the Callahans employed several, to actually take care of the cars Vincent and Nicholas had dabbled with—attacked them with a singularly useless and anachronistic tire iron, refused to answer to his name, and threw himself through the glass of a window when they wouldn’t kill him.

When Vega nearly tripped another explosion, they slowed even more painfully, moving through the house like heavily-armored snails, waiting for the boot to drop from above. None of them doubted that boot’s presence. They simply didn’t know what form it would take.

A pair of gardeners, armed with the pathetic, commercial-grade flamethrowers used to clear brush, ambushed them, but succeeded only in singeing Vega’s eyebrows; the butler, who’d once known the name, occupation and relative wealth of every person who crossed the threshold, stared through Shepard and Nicholas both before shooting himself with one of the ancient showpiece guns he’d always taken such loving care of; in the maids’ dormitory, they found all ten housemaids in the throes of death, poisoned by the housekeeper who’d served them rat poison tea. The housekeeper looked very much like her daughter, leaving a corpse with a spray of freckles across its nose and gleaming silver hair that had once been brown.

Suicide or slaughter or strike, no one they came across lived. All attempts to reason with them proved useless; all attempts to stop them proved fatal.

Shepard heard the message loud and clear. No one was safe. Nothing was sacred. These lives meant nothing, and the loss of them served no purpose save to needle her.

She’d said to push, after all. She just hadn’t thought it would look like this, petty and personal and cruel. Lives as objects to be used and discarded, calculus ruthless because the mathematician simply didn’t care about balancing the equation.

After the housemaids, none of them spoke.

And still, they could not find the artifact. Moira had told Garrus it was displayed publicly, like art, but though many artworks hung on the walls or stood on pretentious pedestals throughout the house, none of them was an orb. Nicholas guided them to the vaults where the real treasures were kept; like an art gallery, the Callahans had so many priceless pieces they could not be on display all at once. The vault opened at once to Nicholas’ biometrics, revealing a room as cool and vast and large as the one she’d seen during the heist to retrieve Keiji’s greybox.

Kasumi let out a low whistle, a thief’s appreciation for loot beyond worth. After the third time they’d been ambushed by household staff, she’d left aside the unnecessary subterfuge and rejoined them, dropping her cloak. Shepard wished she could hide behind her own; all these sucker punches of familiar faces acting in impossible ways left her breathless, her control and calm split with hairline fractures.

No artifact.

“This is a pretty fucked up game of hide-and-seek,” Vega said, eyes constantly scanning the distance. He sounded tense. He sounded sick. Shepard understood completely. “You sure we can’t find one of these things closer to home?”

It had crossed her mind that this was exactly what the Leviathan wanted them to do. It had proven its point; it was in control—both literally and figuratively—and could keep throwing bodies at the problem as long as there were bodies to throw, all without hurting itself in the slightest. Resistance meant more deaths, more futility.

“We know it’s here because they’re still enthralled,” she replied as evenly as she could. “It’s a test.”

“Feels like it’s one we fail no matter what we do,” replied Vega.

She understood that, too.

When they’d finished searching the house and its outbuildings, the sky had gone dark. The moon glowed on the horizon, fighting the cloud cover. When they’d first arrived, it had seemed quiet, but the silence was pervasive now, heavy and horrible. The silence of a battlefield, where only the fallen remained. Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. They hadn’t seen one of the estate’s enthralled denizens in half an hour; she had to accept that perhaps everyone was dead, and—with no more use for it—the artifact destroyed. Wrestling with the order to fall back to the shuttle, she opened her eyes and looked into the face of yet another ghost.

She’d never known his name. He’d always been called “Driver” and even when she asked, he’d only smiled and settled his hands on the steering mechanism of whatever vehicle he’d been using to ferry her about.

He’d shown her kindness, as much as anyone was allowed to show kindness without it costing them their position, their security. He’d kept contraband chocolate bars in the glove compartment; he’d always taken the long route home when he was driving her to or from one of the many appointments or photo ops Moira had set up, and that long route had always included food of the type Moira forbade; sometimes, he’d asked how she was feeling as if he really meant it.

In his arms, held like a baby, was the artifact, its surface gleaming like an oil slick. She wanted nothing more than to put a bullet through it, to see it and its eldritch power crumble into dust. As if sensing this, he raised it over his head. The darkness hid his eyes from her; she could not see if they were as blank as all the others. She did not have to. At the apex of the lift, his hands twitched and she knew they would pull away, that this moment would be the Leviathan’s parting shot.

It underestimated her, of course. She did not hesitate, did not think; she ran. Her bones still ached a little, but she ignored the pain. One step, two. A deceptively fast, long-legged stride. She’d always been a good sprinter, always. Three steps. On the fourth, she lifted her pistol. On the sixth, she took a shot, grazing his shoulder. He didn’t flinch, but the force drove him back and loosened his grip.

The artifact fell.

Shepard slid like a batter headed for home, and caught it.

At one time, the worst thing about this house had been the white room, white uniform, white prison feeling of the place. Those memories would fade now. These ones, of blood and loss and senselessness, so much worse, would take their place.

The driver moaned. Nicholas was already at his side, ensuring no sudden suicide or other attack could take place.

“Fine,” she snarled at the artifact’s swirling surface. “The second way it is.”


End file.
